‘We did not forget, we did not forgive’: CRPF salutes Pulwama martyrs

india

Updated: Feb 14, 2020 09:10 IST

The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) posted a remembrance tweet on Friday, a year after 40 of its troopers were killed in a car bomb attack in Pulwama.

In the tweet, posted at 12am, the CRPF said that they have not forgiven or forgotten the attack.

“The songs of your valour are not lost in the harsh noise/ We were so proud that we didn’t cry for long,” the force tweeted in Hindi.

“WE DID NOT FORGET, WE DID NOT FORGIVE: We salute our brothers who sacrificed their lives in the service of the nation in Pulwama. Indebted, we stand with the families of our valiant martyrs,” it added in English.

A suicide bomber of Pakistan-backed Jaish-e-Mohammad had rammed a vehicle carrying explosives into the CPRF convoy on February 14, 2019, on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway killing the 40 men in Pulwama district.

Tensions flared up between India and Pakistan after the convoy of 78 buses, in which around 2500 CRPF personnel were travelling from Jammu to Srinagar, came under attack.

“I feel the same fire in my heart that’s raging inside you,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said on February 17, days after the attack took place.

A day before, he had said that “all tears will be avenged” and the armed forces have been given “full freedom to decide the place, time, intensity and nature of the retaliation against the enemy”.

The Pulwama attack prompted India to carry out an airstrike on February 26, 2019, on a terror camp in Pakistan, which retaliated a day later. Pakistan captured and later released an India pilot after an air combat.

The United Nations and several countries condemned the Pulwama terror attack and extended their support to India in the fight against terrorism.

Pakistan’s “all-weather friend”, China, also backed the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the “heinous and cowardly” Pulwama terror attack that was unanimously adopted by permanent and non-permanent member countries of the global body.

India had also launched extensive diplomatic efforts to get JeM chief Masood Azhar designated as a global terrorist after the attack. He was listed as a global terrorist on May 1, 2019, when China lifted its technical hold on a proposal introduced by the US, the UK and France in the 1267 Committee of the UNSC.

A top official said on Thursday that a memorial to the CRPF personnel killed in the Pulwama terror attack in February last year will be inaugurated at the Lethpora camp on Friday.

The names of all the 40 personnel along with their pictures will be part of the memorial. It will also display the CRPF’s motto—Seva our Nishtha’ (Service and Loyalty).