Tourists should have fought back terrorists in Pahalgam: BJP leader

New Delhi: BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Ram Chander Jangra said that the grieving wives of men killed in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam lacked heroic qualities, enthusiasm and zeal.

Chander Jangra said if tourists had received Agniveer training, they would have been able to fight back the terrorists, NDTV reported.

Agniveer is the scheme for recruitment in the armed forces that the Modi government introduced.

Only a few days before his party colleague Vijay Shah, a minister in Madhya Pradesh, came under fire for his ‘crass remarks’ against Army Colonel Sofiya Qureshi.

At an event for the 300th birth anniversary of Ahilyabai Holkar , a brave 18th-century Maratha queen, Jangra told a gathering in Haryana's Bhiwani that ‘The women, who lost their husbands lacked the warrior spirit, enthusiasm and zeal. Therefore, they became victims of the attack’.

Chander Jangra said the terrorists did not spare any of the victims despite folding their hands, adding ‘Our people died with folded hands’.

Praising the Agnipath scheme, he said that if the tourists underwent the training, the three terrorists could not have killed 26 people because tourists would have fought back thus ‘the casualties would have been fewer’.

When asked how he expected the women to fight terrorists, the MP cited the historic examples of women warriors saying ‘Ahilyabai Holkar was a woman, so was Rani Lakshmibai, did they not fight? We want our sisters to be brave and live courageously'.

Shocking the entire nation, terrorists gunned down 25 tourists and a ponywallah on April 22 at the picturesque Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam with terror outfit The Resistance Front later claiming responsibility for the attack.

Videos from the attack showed terrorists specifically targeting men while their wives wailing for help.

Chander Jangra is now facing criticism for his remarks with Congress leader Jairam Ramesh saying that BJP leaders are ‘continuously insulting the Indian Army and the martyrs’.