Pulwama attack: There was no intelligence failure, Centre tells Lok Sabha
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishen Reddy said ‘all agencies are working in a coordinated manner’.
The government on Wednesday told the Lok Sabha that there was no intelligence failure in the Pulwama terror attack. The attack, orchestrated by the Jaish-e-Mohammad group, had killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force soldiers on February 14.
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishen Reddy said “all agencies are working in a coordinated manner and the intelligence inputs are shared among various agencies on a real-time basis”, NDTV reported.
“Jammu and Kashmir is affected by terrorism sponsored and supported from across the border for the last three decades,” he told the House. “However, owing to the policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism and sustained action against the terrorists by the security forces, a large number of terrorists have been neutralized during the past few years.”
On Tuesday, the Centre had told the Lok Sabha that over 700 terrorists have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir in the last three years. “Security forces are taking effective and continuous action in countering terrorism,” Reddy had told the House.
On February 26, in response to the attack, Indian Air Force jets struck a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist camp in Balakot in Khyber Paktunkhwa province of Pakistan. The next day, Pakistani and Indian jets engaged in a dogfight near the Line of Control. Pakistan captured an IAF pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, but released him on March 1.