Congress says Nowgam blast exposes New Delhi’s failures in IIOJK
New Delhi: Senior Indian opposition leaders have said the deadly explosion at the Nowgam Police Station in Srinagar has exposed the grave failures of the Modi regime in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, calling it a wake-up call for New Delhi to accept accountability.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, reacting to the killing of nine personnel and injuries to over 30 others in the blast, said the incident shows New Delhi’s inability to manage even its own highly militarised ‘security’ grid in the occupied territory.
Kharge said the blast, which occurred during the handling of a large cache of unstable explosives, comes just days after the Red Fort car blast in Delhi and reflects “deepening security lapses.” He demanded an all-party meeting to discuss what he called the “growing threat”.
Rahul Gandhi, also reacting to the incident, termed the blast “heartbreaking” and expressed condolences to the families of the deceased. He said reports indicate the explosion occurred during examination of materials linked to the Red Fort blast case, widely seen in Kashmir as another pretext New Delhi is using to intensify raids, detentions and profiling of local youth.
Meanwhile, civil society observers in the occupied territory say the Nowgam blast has once again underlined the risks created by the Indian forces’ mishandling of explosives, and questioned why such hazardous material was being processed inside a police station located in a populated area.
