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| Police now admits Bijbehara tourists were attacked by militants | | |
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Dec 29: It is not that the state police has a short memory when it admits that the militants killed in the Pulwama encounter were behind the grenade attack that killed four women tourist in Bijbehara this July.
Refuting strongly the media reports those had clearly said that militants had hurled a grenade at the tourist bus that exploded inside resulting in fatal injuries to the passengers, the state police had categorically said a cooking gas cylinder had exploded inside the bus.
Early Times had carried a front page story about the explosion in which it was stated that the police assertion was wrong and it would only provide space to the militants to attack innocents with grenades while the blame would be laid on the cooking gas companies for making defective gas cylinders.
The police press note issued by the Zonal Police Headquarters in Srinagar detailing the Chandgam encounter in Pulwama yesterday stated that two militants of LeT responsible for the Narwal grenade attack had been killed in the encounter with the security forces those included police from Pulwama and Srinagar districts, Rashtriya Rifles and the CRPF. An army major, a Captain and a constable of the state police were injured in the encounter.
The same police press release said the slain militants were responsible for the grenade attack on a tourist vehicle in Bijbehara in July this year in which four women tourists were killed. IGP Kashmir Zone told reporters that forensic evidence and subsequent investigation had proved that it was not a gas cylinder, but a grenade that had exploded inside the tourist vehicle.
Sources in Anantnag police told Early Times that the FIR lodged in Bijbehara police station blamed the explosion on the militants from day one stating clearly that it was a grenade that had exploded inside the vehicle.
It is unacceptable that the police top brass did not know what had caused the explosion when it occurred in July this year. Somebody higher up in the police hierarchy was trying to act in the so-called 'national interest' by trying to kill the grenade theory. By doing what has been done in this singular incident, we are only providing the crucial operating space to the militants and their sympathizers. It also amounts to subversion and misrepresentation of facts before the public.
The state DGP must look at the sequence of events that had forced his officers to blame a gas cylinder when it was known from day one that it had been a militant grenade explosion.
Truth, however, unpleasant and bitter must always be told. There is no 'national interest' to be protected by misrepresenting facts, never so by the police. |
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