Rajnath’s US, Russia trips off; Madhav says ‘end restraint’

Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday postponed his planned visits to Russia and the United States after the terrorist attack in Uri and called an emergency meeting to review the situation, attended by national security adviser Ajit Doval, Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi (who is rushing to Srinagar on Monday), as well as top Army, paramilitary and MHA officials. The home minister was due to leave for Russia Sunday night for a four-day visit and later for the US on September 26 for a six-day tour to attend the Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue.

This is the second time Mr Singh has been forced to cancel a trip to the US over violence in Kashmir. Earlier, he was to leave for the US on July 17 for a week-long visit but it was postponed after the sudden eruption of violence in Kashmir after Burhan Wani’s killing.

“Keeping the situation of Jammu and Kashmir in mind and in the wake of the terror attack in Uri, I have postponed my visits to Russia and the US,” he said in a statement. The minister said he had spoken to governor N.N. Vohra and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti after the attack on an Army brigade headquarters in Uri and both had apprised him of the situation in the state.

Senior BJP leader Ram Madhav racheted up the pitch against Pakistan Sunday, in a strongly-worded response to the dastardly attack in Uri, saying that the “period of strategic restraint was over”. The government’s policy, he added, should now be “for one tooth, the complete jaw”.

Mr Madhav, who is also the BJP’s pointperson for Jammu and Kashmir, and had negotiated the alliance with the People’s Democratic Party before the formation of the coalition government in the state, said: “The days of the so-called strategic restraint are over. If terrorism is the instrument of the weak and coward, restraint in the face of repeated terror attacks betrays inefficiency and incompetence. India should prove otherwise.” Earlier, the home minister had also referred to Pakistan as a “terrorist state”, indicating the BJP-led government at the Centre, which had come under a lot of flak from the Congress and other Opposition parties over its Pakistan policy, would raise the heat on the neighbouring country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vow that those behind the Uri attack “will not go unpunished” also triggered a lot of speculation about the options India could exercise, with a swift, surgical strike on terror camps in Pakistan- occupied Kashmir being one of them, but experts also warned against the consequences and the damage that any escalation could pose if it got out of hand.

All sides of the political spectrum condemned Sunday’s attack, with Congress president Sonia Gandhi expressing shock and distress, and voicing the hope that the “perpetrators of this dastardly attack, as also the forces behind them, will be severely dealt with and brought to book”. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, on a yatra in Uttar Pradesh, stood up for a 30-second period of silence as a mark of respect to the martyred soldiers before starting his speech.

Former defence minister A.K. Antony called the Uri attack a “serious security lapse” he also said “it seems the government has not learnt any lessons from Pathankot”.