It is unfortunate that politics has started to play out on the Kashmir terror attack after the arrival of the bodies of terror victims with their families to Karnataka on Thursday.

While Governor Thawarchand Gahlot and Chief Minister S Siddaramaiah visited the families of the victims, their consoling words failed to ameliorate their grief.

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The one thing the bereaved families are sure of, and they are not mincing words about it, is that the government has miserably failed to provide security to the tourists, and more importantly in preventing such a thing from happening..

The distraught father of Bharat Bhushan, the 41-year-old techie from Bangalore who was killed, Chennaveerappa, felt there should have been better security arrangements. The Centre should step up security in Kashmir and eliminate all the terrorists so that no one meets the fate of his son.

Though he welcomed the diplomatic response to the terror attack of the government, he insisted that it was the lack of security for which the innocent tourists paid a price. It’s the inadequate security that turned their holidays into a nightmare.

Bharat Bhushan’s body arrived at his residence in Bangalore at around 6 am. He is survived by his wife and a three-year-old son. The state government and neighbours helped the family make necessary arrangements for his funeral.

Given the occasion and the sombre mood of the people present at the residence of late Bhushan’s house in Bengaluru, the governor admitted that there could have been a security lapse, but assured that the Modi government would avenge this dastardly act of terror and teach Pakistan a lesson. He lauded the Karnataka government for its efforts to bring back the bodies of the slain citizens and also for ferrying the stranded tourists back home.

In the words of Pallavi, the wife of slain relator Manjunath Rao, “The terrorists were roaming free and we Indians were living in fear there. After they killed my husband and other men, there was no help for more than an hour, as it is a tough terrain. But I feel they should have deployed security personnel in this tourist spot (Baisaran) to avert this tragedy.”

She appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to terrorise the terrorists so that they dread laying their hands on any Indian in future.

While the governor assured that India would strike back at Pakistan and urged the people to have faith in the government, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah reminded the people that it was the same district that had witnessed the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. “I feel there has been an intelligence failure,” he said.

Pointing out that the terrorists killed men in front of their wives and children, he said there is nothing more cowardly than this. “The state government will provide a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the families of each of the deceased,” he added.

Many state and Central ministers, MLAs, and MPs were present at Bengaluru and Shivamogga where the bodies of the slain citizens were brought for the last rites.

The mortal remains of Manjunath Rao reached Bengaluru Airport on Thursday morning and were transported to Shivamogga which observed an undeclared bandh with people joining their funeral procession in large numbers. ABVP activists staged a protest and hung effigies of the terrorists from an earth mover and chanted the slogans ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ and ‘Manjunath amar rahe’ all along the way.

Union Minister Prahlad Joshi condemned the attack calling it an attempt to derail the government’s efforts to develop Kashmir. “The people of Kashmir, rising above the barriers of religion and caste, had begun to feel safer and trust the Indian government and its development agenda for Kashmir. There was a decline in terror activities and a boom in tourism. So, the terror attack was a bid to derail all these efforts,” the union minister said.

BJP State President B Y Vijayendra, who consoled a grieving family in his constituency, said, “It is Pakistan’s ploy to scuttle the development of tourism in Kashmir so that the Kashmiri youth don’t get employment opportunities and come to the streets. This would help terrorists recruit and exploit these youth for terror.”

Vijayendra also slammed the Congress leaders for blaming “security lapse and intelligence failure” in Kashmir for the tragedy. “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who alleges there was a security and intelligence failure in Kashmir, should pose the question to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, as Congress ruled the country for more than 60 years and could not uproot terrorism,” he said.