Bangalore: The BJP on Saturday dubbed as uncharitable the remarks of Home Minister P Chidambaram in Washington on the controversial Ishrat Jehan fake encounter, and said such statement was not expected of him and that too on a foreign soil.
Chidambaram had said the Gujarat Government could not
justify the killings using Central intelligence inputs as
conclusive proof.
It (such statement) was not expected from a Home Minister
of a federal government and "that too on a foreign soil", BJP
leader M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters here.
When the High Court was seized of the matter and an
inquiry was in progress, how could the Home Minister come to a
conclusion, he asked.
"It (Chidambaram`s statement) will also dilute our fight
against terrorism," he said.
Flaying the "orchestrated campaign" to malign the Gujarat
Government and Chief Minister Narendra Modi "by Congress" and
other parties, Naidu said the encounters in the state were the
lowest in the country in the last five years compared to many
Congress-ruled states.
The Union Home Ministry has clearly stated in its
affidavit in the Ahmedabad High Court that the accomplices of
Ishrat were described as operatives of Pakistan-based terror
group Lashkar-e-Taiba, he said.
"Accusing the Gujarat government of staging false
encounters is political opportunism", Naidu said.
"The victims` families are yet to tell us why their kin
were found with the two Pakistani nationals", he said.
Assuming that Ishrat was not a terrorist, what about the
three persons who were with her, and Javed Sheikh alias
Pranesh Pillai who is said to have had two passports, had gone
to Oman and met LeT cadres there, Naidu asked.
Naidu said the IB report stated that Ishrat and Javed
went to Lucknow, Agra and a few other cities as husband and
wife.
"If she is a college student in Mumbai, what was she
doing in a car in Ahmedabad?", he asked.
"The affidavit filed by the Centre also says Ishrat,
Javed and the two persons who accompanied them were terror
suspects", he said.
Bureau Report
