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Hitting out at the government over the handling of Pathankot terror attack, Congress on Monday said 'conflicting' statements on the incident showed 'breakdown of institutional mechanism' as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has 'concentrated' all powers in his hands.
Leading the party’s charge, Congress president Sonia Gandhi termed the internal security situation as ‘serious’ and hoped that Centre was taking all necessary steps to neutralise terror threats.
Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken went hammer and tongs against the government alleging that institutional mechanism stands ‘demolished’ and the government is ‘in dark’.
"Institutions are functioning in isolation and not in tandem, which is scary. Even the home minister is not aware how many terrorists were neutralised. The home minister does not even know that whether the operation is over yet or not. After the home minister says that the operation is over, the home secretary says it is continuing," Maken said at the All India Congress Committee briefing.
"If even the home minister does know what has happened, it only points to the extent of the breakdown of institutional mechanism in this government. This shows the government is in dark and falling at each other. Sections of the government are not even aware how things are being done," he said.
He rued that even after passage of 56 hours, it was not clear whether Cabinet Committee on Security has met or not.
"The institutional mechanism, which has to respond in such serious situations, has been demolished as the prime minister has concentrated all powers in his hand. The CCS is one of the examples to show the prime minister is trying to do everything from the Prime Minister’s Office and even concerned ministers are not being kept in the loop," Maken alleged.
As operations against two remaining terrorists at the Pathankot air base continued, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said on Sunday that it was unsure if more militants were still holed up. The comments by Mehrishi came a day after Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted saying the operation had been completed with the killing of five terrorists.
Singh later deleted his tweet.
Maken said it was unfortunate that a number of ministers claimed that the operation was over even though it was continuing. He said such 'conflicting' statements only showed 'lack of coordination' within the government in the event of such serious security challenges.
He also raised questions over the 'silence' of the government on Pakistan's role in the attack.
"What is the reason that the prime minister, the defence minister and the home minister are hesitant to name Pakistan even after ample evidence of Pakistan connection of the terrorists? Terrorists called up Pakistan numbers from Pathankot. They had even booked the taxi in Pathankot from a Pakistan number. Why the Indian government is silent about Pakistan?" he said.
Maken said the Pathankot attack has raised serious concerns regarding India's internal security and its handling by the Modi government.
"Particularly, intelligence report of a terror module having infiltrated into Delhi, bomb scare happening on Shatabdi Express and all-round general security alert has created an atmosphere of insecurity, raising a question mark on the government’s efficacy to neutralise the threat with the alacrity that it deserves," Maken said.
He alleged that even as the neutralisation of terrorists at the Pathankot airbase continued with our security forces fighting valiantly, the PM was propagating yoga at a gathering in Karnataka.
"Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was preoccupied in his home state of Goa as always. A usually out of loop Home Minister Rajnath Singh first declared the operation to flush out terrorist successful through a tweet at 7 pm on January 2 2015 and said that five terrorists have been killed. After being contradicted by his home secretary, he shockingly deleted his own tweet. External Affairs Ministers, Sushma Swaraj, in the meanwhile, calls a meeting of ex-envoys. Complete disharmony and disjointed responses by those responsible for providing leadership in this time of a serious terror attack speaks volumes about the political leadership as also command and control structures within the government," he said.
He said that even as the security forces continued to battle militants, Union Minister of Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal released a press statement on Sunday evening congratulating the forces for successfully ending the operation.
"The statement was issued to the media at around 5 pm when intense battle between militants and forces was on and the operation was nowhere near ‘end’ at the Pathankot air base," he said.
Meanwhile, the ruling Janata Dal-United has targeted the prime minister over the attack saying Modi has become an 'item boy' of foreign policy.
"It is difficult to understand PM Modi's foreign policy. Modi has become an item boy of foreign policy," JD-U spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said on Monday.
Taking a dig at the prime minister, Kumar said that after the Pathankot attack, Modi should understand that the country needs a PM with a 'six inch brain instead of a 56 inch chest'.
With inputs from M I Khan in Patna