Those who perpetrated violence in Valley in last few days will pay dearly: Panda


PTI | New Delhi | Updated: 07-10-2021 23:05 IST | Created: 07-10-2021 23:04 IST
Those who perpetrated violence in Valley in last few days will pay dearly: Panda
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Those who perpetrated violence in the Valley in the past couple of days and their ''sponsors in other countries'' will have to pay dearly, BJP national vice-president Baijayant Jay Panda said on Thursday, and asserted that there has been a ''dramatic transformation'' in managing terrorism threats in the last few years.

He made the comment during a media interaction here after releasing a report prepared by a think-tank on Prime Minister Narendra Modi completing 20 years in public office.

''We have faced cross-border terrorism from across the border by state-sponsored terrorist organisations, and for decades an attitude had developed in India that we cannot face up to them, we have to live with that. But that has changed, with dramatic policy decisions been taken,'' Panda said.

He claimed that there has been a very ''substantive change in the last few years, in dealing with terrorist threats''.

Modi completed 20 years as the head of a government, including over 13 years as Gujarat chief minister, on Thursday.

Extolling Modi's career, Panda said it has led to ''transformational governance in India'', and that one of his many achievements as a prime minister was the abrogation of Article 370.

''The kind of situation we used to face in Jammu and Kashmir, with some of those secessionist organisations arranging for stone-pelting on a weekly basis... Many people had raised concerns over its aftermath, but there has been a drastic change and stone-pelting incidents are now things of the past'', the BJP leader said.

He alleged that these incidents were ''orchestrated earlier''.

''Yes, terrorists do occasionally keep attacking and we have had terrible tragedies in the last couple of days, but overall we have had a dramatic transformation in managing such threats,'' the BJP national vice-president said.

Supinder Kaur, a woman principal and Deepak Chand, a teacher, were shot dead at point blank range inside a government school in the heart of Srinagar on Thursday, taking to seven the number of civilians killed by militants in Kashmir Valley in five days.

Of the seven, four were from minority communities and six of the deaths took place in Srinagar, the main urban centre of the Valley.

''In the last few days, there have been a few incidents of violence, killing of Kashmiri Pandits and non-Muslim people. Thirty years ago, when there was an ethnic cleansing against the Kashmiri Pandit community, it was downplayed at many places. This time, a daughter of one of the victims has spoken out so powerfully. That is the right spirit,'' Panda told reporters.

Neither the Kashmiri Pandit community nor others ''are cowed down by this. Everybody is clear that this is a different India, this is a New India'', he said.

''And, I can assure you that people who have committed this outrageous acts of violence and murders in the last 2-3 days, and their sponsors in other countries, they will pay dearly for it,'' the senior BJP leader said.

Panda also said that in the defence sector, on a symbolic basis, the long-pending National War Memorial was built. But, on a more substantive basis, work has been done in managing threats of terrorism under PM Modi's leadership.

In response to a question on democracy and the Modi government, Panda said, ''Often there is a false equivalence, and some people try to make comparisons which are not appropriate'', and asserted that decisions of the government have been taken in a democratic spirit.

Recalling his tenure as the chief minister, he claimed that the reconstruction work done in Bhuj and Kutch after the devastating earthquake in Gujarat in 2001, had ''laid the groundwork'' for a similar recovery and rehabilitation work, nearly 20 years later after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He enumerated various ''reformative and transformative decisions'' and iniatives, such as Digital India, Start-up India, GST, labour reforms, agriculture reforms, National Education Policy 2020, 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', among others, of the government under PM Modi.

He also emphasised that under PM Modi, the Northeast is seeing greater development with railways reaching Tripura for the first time since Independence, and it happened in his tenure. Major expansion happened in Assam and in Manipur, work is in the final stages, and within few months it will see rail connectivity, he said.

The think-tank claimed that the report is backed by ''latest facts and figures'' that can be well envisaged as the achievements of the Modi government.

The report Panda released was prepared by Delhi-based think-tank Public Policy Research Centre, and it took about six months to do it, its director Sumeet Bhasin said.

The nearly 90-page report -- ''20 Years of Selfless Service'' -- charts the milestones in Modi's career in public office, first as the chief minister of Gujarat and then as the country's prime minister, including his various key policies and the COVID-19 vaccination programme run by India under his leadership.

Narendra Modi had taken oath as Gujarat chief minister on this day in 2001 and relinquished the chair in 2014 after an uninterrupted stay at the helm as he led the BJP to victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and became prime minister.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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