After the Uri Terrorist attack on our armed forces, the world has sympathised with our country and its continued fight against Pakistan sponsored terrorism. Russia, France, Canada and Afghanistan on Monday joined several other countries in condemning the Uri attack which claimed the lives of 18 Army personnel even as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon+ hoped that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
Russian foreign ministry, in a statement, directly attacked Pakistan for their role: “Regarding the Pathankot Indian air base attack in January 2016, we are very concerned about the terrorist attacks near the Line of Control. We are also concerned about the fact that, according to New Delhi, the Army base near Uri was attacked from Pakistani territory.”
But even as the world was united with India, some sections within India were seen using this tragic incident to score political brownie points. The Goa unit of AAP, issued a press release on the incident, but a closer reading made it clear that AAP was less bothered about the attack, and was more concerned with scoring political points:
The press release started with expressing “shock” over the incident and extending sympathies with our armed forces. But the real “shock” was how AAP stayed clear of naming or condemning Pakistan for the attack. They also felt it necessary to call the terrorists as “militants”. Coincidentally this was very similar to Pakistan ally China’s response to the attack where they avoided naming Pakistan but expressed “shock”. In fact one could say China’s statement was superior, as the rest of the contents of AAP’s statement will indicate.
After 2 sentences regarding the attack, AAP Goa unit went into election mode and chose to rake up some “security paper leaks” from the Defence Ministry. If they were referring to the recent Scorpene leaks then this is a self goal because the “leaks” happened in France, that too in 2011. But such facts did not matter to AAP Goa which just wanted to get even with the Defence Minister, who is also from Goa.
And from here on, AAP dedicated the rest of the release to taking pot-shots at the Defence Minister. In a short statement, just 2 sentences focused on the actual incident. Even those sentences were inadequate as there was no condemnation of Pakistan whatsoever.
The real intent of the press release was now revealed as they chose to hit-back at the Defence Minister Parrikar for his statements against Arvind Kejriwal. Parrikar, addressing a BJP function a day before the Uri attack, had jocularly said that criticising PM Modi made Kejriwal’s tongue bigger, hence it had to be trimmed. This statement probably got the goat of AAP Goa leaders even more than the cowardly terror attack by Pakistan, hence their guns were aimed at the Defence Minister and a clean chit was given to Pakistan.
Giving a political response to a political attack by an opponent is fair, but the unfortunate shooting of the shoulders of dead soldiers by AAP Goa, meanwhile giving a clean chit to Pakistan, is a cause of serious concern.
