Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand before you today to condemn the atrocious terrorist attack against Indian security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir in India on 14 February 2019. On 14 February, a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber at Lethpora in the Pulwama district in Jammu and Kashmir in India. The attack resulted in the death of 40 Central Police Reserve Force personnel. Responsibility for this attack was claimed by the Pakistani based Islamic group Jaish-e-Mohammad.

This particular group, a fundamentalist organisation, uses violence in pursuit of its objective to force the withdrawal of Indian security forces from the Indian-administered Kashmir. Due to the barbaric actions of this terrorist organisation—and to those from the Indian community who are watching, I want you to know that—since the year 2000, our Australian government, supported by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, has proscribed this terrorist organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad, first on April 2003 and subsequently in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018. I also want the Indian community to know that I was a member of this committee when it was proscribed, justly, as a terrorist organisation in 2007, 2012, 2015 and 2018.

India and Australia are long-term partners and friends. We are the happy recipient of India's greatest gift to the world—the many people who have come from India to make Australia their home. I want the community to know that I stand with you in your grief on this terrorist attack. I note that last weekend the Indian community conducted a number of events across Australia to condemn the actions of this particular group.

I want to conclude with a comment that was provided to me by Dr Asha Muhammed, a person who came from Kerala and made Australia her home. She said—reflecting, I think, the sentiments of the Indian community, the diaspora, in this country—in response to this event:

The death of more than 40 soldiers in the central police force is the single deadliest attack on security forces in Kashmir in 30 years. This terrorist attack is not just a national tragedy, it is a human tragedy. The soldiers killed were not wealthy or well off. They came from families that in many cases don't have much money. These families have now lost their sole hope. They have lost fathers, husbands and sons who often were the sole source of income and support for their families.

As a mother I weep because of the mothers of the soldiers in Kashmir who have lost husbands and sons. Lost them to an act of complete inhumanity. We grieve for our lost hope and we hope that those who took away our hope meet with swift justice.

And so do I.