'Left us like orphans': Priyanka Gandhi questions lack of security before Pahalgam attack

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday slammed the Centre for the Pahalgam terror attack, alleging that the BJP-led government failed to deploy security in the picturesque area, which is visited by lakhs of tourists every year. Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the Wayanad MP said the wife of one of the 26 victims of the Pahalgam terror attack said she had not seen even one security personnel before the shooting.

"The whole time when the people were being killed mercilessly, she did not see one security personnel," Priyanka Gandhi Vadra quoted the wife of Shubham Dwivedi as saying.

"When citizens were being killed one by one for an hour, there wasn't a single security personnel. I saw my world ending in front of my eyes; there was not a single security guard. Why was there no security there?" she quoted the victim's wife as saying.

Vadra said the woman had seen with her eyes that not even a security guard was deployed there. "I can see that the government left us like orphans there," she added.

"Why was security not there? Why was there no soldier? Did the government not know that there is daily footfall here? They know that the way to the place is through the forest.What if something else happened, then people could not get out.

"There was not even one facility for treatment, first aid, or even security. The people were left alone. They went on the trust of the government, and the government left them in god's will," she added.

Twenty-six people, mostly tourists, were gunned down by a group of terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April22. In response, in May, India destroyed nine terrorist bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Union Home Minister Amit Shah today announced in the parliament that threeLashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists involved in the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack were killed on Monday in Dachigam near Srinagar.