New Delhi, July 29 (IANS) Union Home Minister Amit Shah lashed out at the Congress as well as party veteran P Chidambaram on Tuesday, taking umbrage over the latter’s remarks that the Pahalgam attackers could have been ‘homegrown terrorists’ and not from across the border. He said there was ample proof of their country of origin as the Voter IDs of the Pahalgam terrorists were Pakistani.

Speaking on the ‘Operation Sindoor’ debate in Lok Sabha, Amit Shah assailed the grand old party and Chidambaram over raising doubts, even if small, on whether the terrorists who killed 26 people in Baisaran Valley in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) were Pakistanis.

He expressed surprise as to how the former Home Minister of the country (P Chidambaram) was raising questions over origin and nationality of terrorists.

“Whom do you want to save? What will you gain by shielding Pakistan?,” asked the furious Home Minister.

Amit Shah told the House that there was ample proof with the government and investigating agencies that the attackers came from Pakistan.

“They were Pakistanis. Their voter ID number is available; the rifles they used are also with us. Pakistan-made chocolates that the terrorists carried have also been recovered,” Amit Shah said.

“Former Home Minister is giving clean chit to Pakistanis,” he added.

Chidambaram, in a recent interview with a news publication, claimed that the government was unwilling to disclose the work the NIA has done in the aftermath of the terror attack in J&K.

“Have they identified the terrorists? Where they came from? I mean, for all we know, they could be homegrown terrorists. Why do you assume that they came from Pakistan? There’s no evidence of that,” he told the daily.

In another instance, when the Home Minister was heckled by the Opposition members in the House, led by SP MP Akhilesh Yadav, over the Centre’s alleged failure in bringing the perpetrators to book even after 100 days of the heinous Pahalgam attack, he said that the security forces achieved unprecedented success in gunning down the terrorists involved in the April 22 terror attack.

As the Opposition kept interjecting, he taunted them asking, “Doesn’t killing of terrorists bring smile on your faces?”

“I thought the killing of Pahalgam terrorists would bring a smile on the faces of all Parliamentarians, but this is strange. You are not happy. All should stand united in matters of national security and not express certain emotions, based on their religious identity,” he further said.

–IANS

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