Kerala government soft on terror, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

Kochi: Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday accused the CPI(M)-led LDF government in Kerala of being “very soft on terrorism and its patrons” and said he has evidence to show that.

He said this while criticising the Pinarayi Vijayan led LDF government for stating in the Supreme Court that a controversial Muslim marriage case in the state did not warrant a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe.

“Is it fair and right for the Kerala government to move the Supreme Court to say that you don’t allow NIA, we are doing our job.” “Is the Kerala Government doing its job?,” Mr Prasad asked at a press conference here.

His comments came days after the state government informed the Supreme Court that its police had conducted a “thorough investigation” into the conversion of a Hindu woman to Islam and her subsequent marriage to a Muslim man and did not find material warranting the transfer of probe to the NIA. The top court had on August 16 directed the NIA to probe whether there was a wider pattern of alleged ‘love jihad’ in the case in which the Hindu woman converted to Islam and later married Shafin Jahan, the Kerala Muslim man. Mr Prasad, who was in Kerala to attend the Janaraksha Yatra organised by the state BJP against “jihadi and red terror,” said that whenever he comes to the state, he hears stories and there is a widely held perception that many young boys and girls have eloped, misguided by radical elements.