Amid row over Rahul Gandhi‘s speech at Cambridge University where he touched upon various issues including Pegasus, his experience at the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Kashmir Files director Vivek Agnihotri criticised the Congress leader for his ‘militants could not do anything‘ comment. “Because in the 80s, your father did nothing to the terrorists. So it was a return gift,” Vivek Agnihotri wrote in a jibe at Rahul Gandhi. Read | From Pegasus to Bharat Jodo Yatra: 5 points from Rahul Gandhi’s Cambridge speech
As Rahul Gandhi spoke about his experience of the Bharat Jodo Yatra at Cambridge University, he recounted an incident in Kashmir where a person who came up to him while he was walking showed him a few men standing in a distance and told Rahul Gandhi that they were terrorists. Rahul Gandhi said he felt he was in trouble as he saw the “militants” looking at him. He also looked at them and the yatra went on and nothing happened. Rahul Gandhi said the “militants” could not do anything even if they wanted to as he went there to listen to the people of Kashmir with no violence in him.
Vivek Agnihotri called the gesture of the militants as “return gift”.
Over several points of Rahul Gandhi’s speech, the BJP criticised him, the ‘militant’ account being one of them. BJP’s Amit Malviya said this was actually a Freudian slip of Rahul Gandhi where the Congress leader admitted that terrorists are now “powerless” in Kashmir. “After conceding that post abrogation of Article 370 nationalistic fervour is on the rise in the Valley, Kashmiri youth are asserting their Indian identity more than ever before, Rahul Gandhi, in a Freudian slip now admits that militants in Kashmir are powerless…,” Malviya tweeted.
In a press meet on Saturday, BJP’s Sambit Patra said, “Rahul Gandhi said he saw militants in Kashmir. He said security collapsed in Kashmir but terrorists did not do anything to Rahul Gandhi as he had non-violence inside him. Does that mean all those innocent people who have been killed in the Valley had violence inside them? What does this mean?”
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate address a press conference amid the political row and said the criticism of Rahul Gandhi’s speech by the BJP is hollow. “Can the government deny that there is terrorism is Kashmir? What is wrong in that statement? It is a different thing that the government will promote a film but will not protect the Kashmiri pandits,” Supriya Shrinate said.
