Country’s mood is to avenge Pulwama killings: Rajnath Singh

BHUBANESWAR: Home minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said the country’s general mood is to avenge the Pulwama attack and reiterated that sacrifice of the martyred CRPF jawans will not go in vain.
Addressing a public meeting at Bhadrak, 140 km from here, his first since the Thursday’s terrorist strike, Rajnath said, “Mein Samajh ta hun ki sabke dil mein tadpan hai, tees hai, jo aatankbadiyon nein kiya hai, uska badla kaise liya jaye.(I understand everybody has a yearning, pain in heart, thinking about how to avenge this terrorist attack).”
“As the home minister, I assure you, the martyrs’ sacrifice will not go in vain. Our defence forces have been given free hand to ensure the sacrifice will not go waste,” Rajnath said, adding, “I take pride in the fact that the entire country stand united on the issue. All political parties have condemned Pakistan.”
Stating that the central armed forces had neutralised numerous terror plans in past five years, the home minister said, “the Pakistani forces saw these actions and realised the terrorists backed by them were getting frustrated. For that, they made this big attack plan.”
The crowd at Ranital ground, mostly BJP grassroots level workers, filled the air with anti-Pakistan, anti-terror slogans as Rajnath repeated five times that “the martyrs’ sacrifice will not go waste.”
Striking an emotional chord with the people of Odisha, Rajnath mentioned his “reverence for supreme sacrifice” of Manoj Behera and Prasanna Sahoo, the two CRPF jawans from Odisha who were among those martyred in the Thursday attack.
Earlier, Rajanath and oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan paid tributes to the martyrs killed in Pulwama and observed two-minute silence at the beginning of the meeting.
The two Union ministers also paid tributes to the martyrs of India’s freedom struggle at Eram in Bhadrak district. Eram is known as the 2nd Jallianwala Bagh of India where police had shot 29 freedom fighters during a meeting on September 28, 1942.
Countering Rahul Gandhi’s “chowikidar chor hai jibe” on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajnath repeated his earlier remarks of “chowikidar pure hai, uska do baara PM ban na sure hai.”
Rajnath also made veiled attack on Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, saying, “the people of Odisha would like to know why the state is among the most backward after you remained in power for so long (19 years).”
Asking people to vote for BJP in the simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly elections, Rajnath said, “BJP governments both in the state and at the Centre will put the state on fast track of development.”