London: The UK government and other top leaders condemned Friday the terrorist attack in Pulwama, which claimed the lives of more than 40 CRPF jawans in Kashmir, as a ‘senseless and brutal act’.
“Shocked by today’s (Thursday) senseless and brutal act of terror in…Kashmir. I offer my sincere condolences to the victims’ families. We stand with India,” UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Twitter.
His statement came amid a widespread outpouring of support for India in the wake of the attack, with a number of British MPs taking to social media to condemn the terror strike.
“I am deeply saddened by the terrorist attack in Kashmir. Thoughts are with the Indian security personnel killed and injured by this appalling crime,” said Conservative Party MP Tom Tughendat, who is chairing the ongoing parliamentary ‘Global Britain and India’ inquiry.
Another Tory MP and leader of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for British Hindus, Bob Blackman, also took to Twitter to say it was time for India to isolate Pakistan.
“Pulwama attack: India will ‘completely isolate’ Pakistan. We stand with India. Time to isolate & proscribe the terrorists responsible for this atrocity,” he wrote.
Indian-origin Opposition Labour Party MP Virendra Sharma condemned the attack and called on the UK government to reconsider the reference to ‘India-administered Kashmir’.
“I was pleased to see the British Foreign Secretary, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, has offered his sincere condolences to the victims’ families, and stated that ‘we stand with India’, but I am concerned that he used the phrase ‘India-administered Kashmir’,” Sharma stated.
Sharma added that he has written to the Foreign Secretary to reiterate that Kashmir is an integral part of the Indian state and has been since it formally acceded in 1947.
PTI
