india

Updated: Feb 24, 2019 21:59 IST

The army has resolved to wipe out terrorists and their harbourers following the Pulwama attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Sunday, asserting that the martyrdom of 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soldiers will keep “inspiring us relentlessly to uproot the very base of terrorism”.

In his 53rd Mann ki Baat broadcast before the Lok Sabha elections, Modi asked people to rally together to take on the challenge of terrorism facing the country by forgetting barriers of casteism, communalism, regionalism and other differences so that the steps against terror are firmer and more decisive.

In an apparent reference to the killing of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, who the Army said were masterminds of the Pulwama attack, in an encounter, he said “retributive action was accomplished” within 100 hours of the incident.

Paying tributes to security forces, Modi said he will dedicate the National War Memorial to them on Monday and

added that not having such a memorial always pained and surprised him.

“I do believe that for our countrymen a visit to the National War Memorial will be akin to a pilgrimage to a holy place. The National Soldiers’ Memorial is a symbol of the nation’s gratitude to those men who made the supreme sacrifice after we gained Independence,” he said.

During the address, he paid tributes to tribal warrior Birsa Munda, who was arrested by the British forces on March 3 in 1900, pioneering industrialists Jamsetji Tata, whose birth anniversary falls on March 3, and former prime minister Morarji Desai, who was born on February 29.