Delhi: National Security Advisor Ajit Doval refuted claims on Tuesday that Yakub Memon was executed because his brother Tiger could not be caught.
As per ANI, Doval was asked the following question - “There's a feeling that India couldn't catch Tiger Memon, so they've executed his younger brother.
To which the NSA said - “It's wrong, don't agree with it at all. The fact is that India should take Tiger Memon to the logical judicial consequence. It is not about what is right and what is wrong. Yakub and Tiger are two standalone things."
He also said, “That inter-linkage I don't think is the correct one,” while delivering a lecture on 'State Security, State Craft and Conflict of Values'.
"There is no revenge. He (Yakub) was tried through the due process of law. I don't think there is any interlinkage (between Yakub and Tiger)," Doval said, answering questions from the audience after the lecture.
At the same time, disapproving of former Union minister Shashi Tharoor's remarks in the aftermath of Memon's hanging, Doval said something that is in the "larger interest of the nation" must prevail.
"In the evening last Thursday (the day Yakub Memon was hanged), somebody tweeted me a statement by an important leader that - state sponsored killings diminish us all, reduce us to murderers," Doval said, delivering a lecture here this evening, as per PTI.
"I am not going into the propriety, exigency or the correctness of the statement. There is something which is in public interest, in the larger interests of the nation and of generations of Indians yet to take birth," he said, without naming Tharoor, but the reference was obvious.
Striking an aggressive note, the NSA said,"Power is not as good as you have it, but as good as you can exercise."
"So, India has a mindset where it hits, it punches below its weight, we have to punch not above our weight, we have to punch not below our weight. We have to increase our weight and punch proportionally," he said delivering a lecture on 'State Security, State Craft and Conflict of Values'.
Doval said "weakness" of a nation includes "unjustified tolerance".
On arrest of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, Doval said it was not the responsibility of the Indian military to get hold of a "fugitive who is living under the protection of some intelligence agency in a guarded place", but if confronted with such a challenge then it would have "develop powers to meet covert threats".
"In the context of the state, you require power, which is one thing. Convertibility of power is not always possible. Be it the Army, Navy or the Air Force. Yes, if its a threat from, say an F-16 from Pakistan or DF-21 missiles from China, we will say that we have got our Army.
"It is not like if somebody who is a fugitive living under the protection of some intelligence agency in a guarded place. If it is a challenge, then the state must develop powers to meet covert threats," Doval said.
Yakub Memon, the lone 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court, was hanged to death on July 30, capping dramatic last-ditch legal manoeuvres by his lawyers to stall his execution that ended in failure.
Memon was hanged at Nagpur Central Prison and his body was later flown to Mumbai for the last rites.
(With Agency inputs)
