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- Published: February 14, 2025 10:26
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday paid tribute to the 40 CRPF personnel who lost their lives in the 2019 Pulwama terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir.Taking to social media platform X, PM Modi said, “Homage to the courageous heroes we lost in Pulwama in 2019. The coming generations will never forget their sacrifice and their unwavering dedication to the nation.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah also paid tribute, calling the attack a “cowardly act of terrorism”.
“On behalf of the grateful nation, I pay my heartfelt tribute to the soldiers who were martyred in the cowardly terrorist attack in Pulwama on this day in the year 2019,” he wrote in a post on X.
“Terrorism is the biggest enemy of the entire human race, and the whole world has united against it. Be it a surgical strike or an airstrike, the Modi government is determined to completely destroy the terrorists by running a campaign with a ‘zero tolerance’ policy against them,” he added.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also paid tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives in the Pulwama terror attack.In a post on X, Yogi said that the sacrifice of the brave sons of Mother India inspires us to fight unitedly against terrorism.
“Heartfelt tribute and salute to all the immortal brave soldiers martyred in the cowardly terrorist attack in Pulwama! The sacrifice of the brave sons of Mother India inspires us to fight unitedly against terrorism. Jai Hind,” the CM said.
On February 14, 2019, a suicide bomber rammed an IED-laden vehicle into a CRPF convoy, killing 40 soldiers. Days after the attack, the Indian Air Force carried out multiple aerial strikes on February 26, 2019, at JeM terror camps in Pakistan’s Balakot, killing a “large number” of terrorists and destroying their infrastructure.
The airstrike was launched in the early hours of February 26, and Pakistan’s efforts to launch an offensive the next day to target Indian military installations in Jammu and Kashmir were thwarted by an alert IAF.
In the dogfight, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, flying a MiG-21 Bison fighter plane and chasing Pakistani jets, crossed over to PoK, where his aircraft was shot down. He was taken into custody by Pakistan. India also shot down a Pakistani fighter jet.