New Delhi: Three months after the Pahalgam terror attack and a day after the opposition raised questions about the investigation and the attackers’ whereabouts, Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday (July 28) announced in parliament, during a special discussion on the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, that the three terrorists involved in the attack had been killed in a joint operation by security forces.Shah’s announcement came in the Lok Sabha on the second day of the special discussion and after months of questions about why the government had not acted against the attackers. While opposition members had demanded a special session in the aftermath of the attack and Operation Sindoor, the demand was not heeded to. When the discussion began on Monday, opposition members questioned the security lapses that led to the attack and demanded that the home minister take responsibility. In a bid to blunt the opposition’s attack, Shah focused his speech in countering the opposition’s questions by blaming the inaction on terror by previous Congress governments. Going as far back as former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Shah said that the root of terrorism was Pakistan which had been formed because the Congress had agreed for Partition in 1947.Pakistan’s hand behind the attackTo counter the opposition’s questions, Shah opened his speech on Tuesday by announcing that Operation Mahadev – a joint operation by the Army, CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police – near Srinagar, had resulted in the killing of the three terrorists identified as Suleman alias Faizal, Afghani and Jibran. Shah said that two were associated with the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, while Pakistani voter IDs and chocolates made in Pakistan were recovered from two of the three, along with weapons that had been confirmed to have been used in the attack. On Monday, opposition members asked why the home minister had not claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 civilians were killed on April 22.“We are responsible because we are in government,” said Shah on Tuesday.Shah accused former home minister P. Chidambaram of giving a “clean chit to Pakistan” by questioning the identity of the Pahalgam attackers and said that voter ID cards and chocolate wrappers that were found from the terrorists were manufactured in Pakistan.“I was sad that former home minister Chidambaram raised questions about the proof that these terrorists were from Pakistan. Who is he trying to save? I would like to tell Chidambaram that we have proof that they were from Pakistan. We have voter numbers too from two out of the three. These rifles are also there. We also have the chocolates found with them that are also manufactured in Pakistan. They are saying they were not Pakistani. This means the country’s former home minister is giving a clean chit to Pakistan,” he said.“The whole world has accepted, when our delegations went abroad, that the terrorists were Pakistani. But the former home minister is not.”Shah accused the Congress of allowing terrorists to flee during previous UPA governments and said that if they had not done so, the Modi government would not have had to carry out Operation Sindoor.“They are asking us where the Pahalgam terrorists went? Those terrorists who had fled India during their (Congress’) rule, our armed forces have picked them out and eliminated them. More than 100 terrorists were killed by our forces. You cannot take pride even at this?” asked Shah.Continued terror attacks under ModiAmid questions from the opposition for continued terror attacks during the Modi government years despite promising to eliminate terrorism, Shah said that every terror attack had been responded to unlike under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.“After the Uri attack, we conducted surgical strikes; after Pulwama we conducted air strikes and after Pahalgam we went 100 kms inside (Pakistan) and demolished nine terror camps and over a 100 terrorists,” he said.On May 7, Indian armed forces launched strikes on nine targets in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir under Operation Sindoor. The government has since claimed that over 100 terrorists had been killed, but had not yet provided any details about whether those who carried out the Pahalgam terror attack had been captured. Operation Sindoor was followed by four days of military conflict with Pakistan, which ended on May 10, with a ceasefire announcement that came first from US President Donald Trump.Instead, Shah focussed on accusing the Congress of allowing the “root of terrorism” to be formed through Partition.“The root of all terrorism is Pakistan. And Pakistan is Congress’s mistake. Had they not accepted Partition, there would not have been Pakistan. They accepted Partition and divided the country,” he said.While the opposition had accused the Modi government of not acting on terror, Shah said that it was the Congress that had opposed the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in parliament that led to a string of attacks between 2005-11.“In 2002, it was the Atal (Behari Vajpayee) government, the NDA government brought The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) to end terrorism,. The Congress opposed it. We did not have the majority in the Rajya Sabha. We were forced to bring a joint session to pass it. Who were you trying to save by stopping the POTA law? By stopping POTA they tried to save terrorists to protect their vote bank. When the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi government came in 2004, the first thing they did was to get rid of POTA,” he said.Shah said that this was followed by a string of terror attacks including the 2006 Mumbai train blasts, terror attack in Jammu’s Doda, Hyderabad blasts, 2008 Mumbai terror attack, Jaipur bomb blast and the Pune German Bakery attack, among others.“Between 2005-2011, there were 27 terror attacks. What did you do? I want to challenge Rahul Gandhi to tell the House what they did against terror attacks. They did nothing. They kept sending dossiers and terrorists’ photos to Pakistan,” Shah said.On ceasefireWhile the opposition has been demanding that the government decisively condemn Trump’s continued claims, including in parliament on Monday, Shah made no mention of Trump in his nearly 1.5 hour long speech. Instead, Shah returned to Nehru while responding to questions from the opposition about Trump’s role, why the decision to stop the conflict was taken and why the BJP’s old promise of bringing back PoK had not been completed.“They were raising questions about why you did not go to war when you were in a good position? There are many implications of war. To go or not go to war has to be thought of. I want to refer to this country’s history,” he said.“In 1948, our forces in Kashmir were in a decisive position but Jawaharlal Nehru unilaterally announced a ceasefire. If there is a Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir it is because of Jawaharlal Nehru. He is responsible,” Shah said.“In 1960, Sardar Patel opposed, went to Akashvani but they closed the doors. They gave 80% of the Indus waters to Pakistan. In the 1965 war, Haji Pir was occupied but in 1966 it was given back. In 1971, the whole country supported Indira Gandhi for dividing Pakistan into two. But what happened in the glory of war? We had 93,000 prisoners of war and 15,000 sqkm territory. But during the Simla Agreement, they forgot to ask for PoK. If they had taken PoK then, we would not have to carry out attacks on camps there now. They even returned the territory,” said Shah.