Centre to take up counter-terrorism measures soon: BJP

K Laxman
| Photo Credit: RAMAKRISHNA G

The Centre will soon take up counter terrorism measures, which will come as a surprise to the world, just like the earlier cross-border air strikes undertaken after the previous terror strikes, said Rajya Sabha MP and National OBC Morcha president K. Laxman on Thursday.

“This is the Modi government and such terror forces will be crushed with an iron hand. There will be repercussions after the dastardly attack on innocent tourists which has been condemned across the country. Investigations are currently on and drones are being used to identify the perpetrators,” he told a press conference at the State office.

He also condemned the Congress party of trying to score political points over the Pahalgam terror attack by pointing to the alleged lapses of intelligence failure or by the security forces. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) has not named Pakistan even once during its meeting as being responsible when the entire world was doing so. The BJP leader said it had once again exposed the hollowness of the party known for having a ‘soft corner’ towards the neighbouring country. It was a clear case of Hindus being targetted in the terror attack as each person was identified before being shot dead but the Congress leaders are reluctant to accept the same for the sake of ‘vote bank politics’, said Mr. Laxman.

And, contrary to the Opposition parties’ scare-mongering about largescale violence if Article 370 is removed in Jammu & Kashmir, the number of terror attacks has come down to 46 in recent times from a high of 219 earlier. “We never said terrorism has been totally eradicated but only talked about drastic reduction in number of terror attacks,” he said and also questioned the “silence” maintained by the BRS and its leaders including K.T. Rama Rao who otherwise is pretty active on the social media.

In a separate press meet, party vice-president and former MLA N.V.S.S. Prabhakar has demanded that the State government launch a special drive to ferret out Pakistani and Bangladesh nationals staying illegally in the Old City even after expiry of their visa period to be deported. “The government should give a free hand to the police in such drives to deport such illegal foreigners,” he added.