Opposition parties criticised the government's handling of the Pathankot terror attack in Parliament today.
The government today came in for a scathing attack in Lok Sabha over the handling of the terror strike on the Pathankot air base, with the opposition dubbing as a "critical mistake" the decision to handover the operation to National Security Guards (NSG).
They also questioned as to what Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lahore stopover had achieved, noting that the terror strike had happened just a few days after that.
Participating in a discussion on the issue, Kalikesh Singh Deo (BJD) singled out the National Security Advisor for attack, saying he had "usurped" the decision-making powers to tackle the incident.
Mr Singh Deo wondered as to why the Army was not asked to deal with the terror strike as 50,000 troops were available in Pathankot itself and they were the best to tackle such situations.
Wondering how the Defence and the Home Ministries could wash their hands off, he said the NSG is used only to tackle urban hostage situations and not for counter-terrorism and added it was "a critical mistake" to hand over the operation to the NSG.
He also pointed out that when the NSG was deployed to deal with the situation, it did not have night-vision devices.
Expressing concern that Maulana Masood Azhar was still roaming free in Pakistan, Mr Singh Deo said this was in spite of the fact that the involvement of his organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed in the terror strike. "Are we not bringing enough pressure on Pakistan", he asked.
On Prime Minister's Lahore stopover, Mr Singh Deo wondered as to what cost the gestures of celebrating a birthday and having a cup of tea and having dinner in the present context of Indo-Pak ties.
Lashing out at the government over its handling of Pathankot terror attack and its overall Pakistan policy, the Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said while there was no coordination between Defence and Home Ministries, the Cabinet Committee on Security had no meeting on the situation. It was more a "show off" and less effective, he said.
He said the government cannot tread the path of walking alone (ekla chalo) without taking the Opposition into confidence in such critical moments.
"There is difference in what the government says and what it does," he said. When the government knew about the presence of terrorists 48 hours before they struck, why were they allowed to roam for such a long time, he asked.
The chief whip of the Congress said there was no coordination between the ministries. "When the Pathankot attack was taking place, the Prime Minister was in Karnataka, attending a Yoga event and tweeting about it," he said.
"The Home Minister tweeted saying we have killed the terrorists, while the Home Secretary said the operation was still on. And then the tweets had to be deleted. The Defence Minister was in Goa attending addressing a conclave of party workers," Mr Scindia said.
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