"Occasion for us to re-dedicate ourselves to defending India": WB Governor Bose on Pulwama attack anniversary

Siliguri (West Bengal) [India], February 14 (ANI): West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose on Friday said that the Pulwama terror attack anniversary is an occasion for Indians to re-dedicate themselves to defending the country.
"This is an occasion for us to re-dedicate ourselves to defending our country," Bose told reporters as India pays homage to 40 CRPF personnel who lost their lives in the terrorist attack in 2019.
"India is strong, and we will assert that. India is great, and we will prove it," he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday paid tribute to the CRPF personnel.
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.
Today marks six years since the Pulwama terror attack when 40 valiant Indian soldiers were killed after a suicide bomber rammed an IED-laden vehicle into the security convoy carrying them.
In a retaliatory strike, 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 air strike 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. (ANI)