New Delhi, July 29 (IANS) Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on the Opposition over holding him accountable for the security lapse in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam and told the Lok Sabha that the security forces have taken revenge for the April 22 terror attack by gunning down three terrorists under the 'Operation Mahadev'. Speaking on the Operation Sindoor debate in the Lower House, Amit Shah said that as the Home Minister, he was answerable for the Pahalgam-like terror attack, but asserted that his government has maintained zero tolerance for those who wage war against the nation. ‘Forces ne thok diya’, Amit Shah told the House, lauding the Operation Mahadev.

In the same vein, he demanded answers from Congress-led governments on their tainted past of ‘being soft’ on the separatists, extremists and terror sympathisers. He said that the Pahalgam attackers have been punished, but Congress must answer for its 'misdeeds' and politically driven approach in bringing terror elements to book. Recalling the incident of teary-eyed Salman Khurshid and the then Congress President Sonia Gandhi shedding tears over the infamous Batla House encounter in 2008, he said that the then government stood with ‘terror sympathisers’.

“Rather than rallying behind martyred cop Mohan Sharma, they were shedding tears with an eye on a certain vote bank,” he said. Digging out the Congress government’s stance on the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), he said that the law brought by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government as a deterrent against terror acts was revoked by the UPA government, soon after coming to power in 2004. "What followed was a string of terror attacks," he said and also listed out incidents when many innocent civilians were killed in terror attacks.

“In December 2004, POTA was revoked. Subsequently, in 2005, the Ram Lalla tent was targeted; in 2006, Mumbai train blasts happened, killing 186 people; in 2006, the Doda attack led to deaths of 44 people; in 2008, Mumbai attacks happened killing 246 people, same year, 21 blasts ripped through Ahmedabad killing 57 people,” he told the House. Further tearing into Congress, Amit Shah said that many dreaded terrorists fled the country when it was in power.

“Dawood Ibrahim fled the country in 1986, Tiger Memon in 1993, while Aness Ibrahim escaped the country in 1993,” he said. He said that the security forces have given a befitting reply to the Pahalgam attackers, and now it’s time that the Leader of Opposition and Congress give answers on who allowed the hardcore terrorists to escape the law, under their regime. Amit Shah’s blistering attack on the Opposition came on the back of its repeated charge that the Pahalgam attackers fled the country after killing 26 tourists, and the Home Minister must take the blame for this.