Asking the Congress to “atone for its conspiracy” of coining “Pakistan-sponsored” terms like “Hindu terror”, the BJP on Saturday hit back at the Opposition party for giving a handle to Pakistan to att
Asking the Congress to “atone for its conspiracy” of coining “Pakistan-sponsored” terms like “Hindu terror”, the BJP on Saturday hit back at the Opposition party for giving a handle to Pakistan to attack India over the Samjhauta Express and Malegaon blasts. It also blamed the Congress for “framing” Sadhvi Pragya Thakur in the Malegaon blasts.
The ruling party’s reaction came after the Opposition party targeted the Modi government over the NIA’s clean chit to Sadhvi Pragya. The Congress had dubbed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) as “NaMo Investigation Agency”, alleging there was “politically partisan misuse” in the Malegaon blast case.
Attacking the former Congress-led UPA government, the BJP claimed that it “fixed” people in Malegaon and Samjhauta Express blasts cases that allowed Pakistan to deflect the blame, when the international community had put it in the dock over the issue of terrorism. “The Congress should not do politics over the NIA’s decision but atone for its conspiracy. Political comments are not evidence. The then home minister used Pak-sponsored terms like Hindu terror and saffron terror. There was no evidence against Pragya Thakur. Digvijay Singh had even blamed the RSS for the Mumbai attack,” BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.
He claimed that the investigation agencies now work freely unlike the past when they looked at cases through “Italian glasses”.
The AAP. meanwhile, questioned the “credibility” of the NIA and accused the BJP of weakening the country’s premier counter-terrorism body.
The party also attacked the NIA and the BJP for questioning the role of slain Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who was heading the agency when it arrested Sadhvi Pragya and Col. Shrikant Purohit, and asked it to apologise for raising doubts over his investigation. “The BJP and the NIA should say sorry for raising doubts about Hemant Karkare who laid his life for the nation. He had served in the RAW for a long time and only officers with integrity are chosen in the spy agency,” AAP’s Ashish Khetan said.
“The Congress and its B-team, like the AAP, are doing vote-bank politics over the issue,” Mr Sharma said, accusing them of having double-standards as eight Muslims were also discharged by the court in the Malegaon blasts recently.
