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Afzal Guru hanging was handled well; there was political interference in Ishrat Jahan case: RK Singh
Former Home Secretary and BJP leader R K Singh on Friday attacked Congress veteran P Chidambaram for claiming that the case of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was not handled correctly.
New Delhi: Former Home Secretary and BJP leader R K Singh on Friday attacked Congress veteran P Chidambaram for claiming that the case of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was not handled correctly.
Reacting to former Home Minister P Chidambaram's remarks, Singh said, “Afzal Guru's case was handled very well.''
Driving his point home, Singh further said, ''Then Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was also consulted well within time in this regard.''
Singh even took a dig at the Congress leader by saying, ''I guess Chidambaram is writing a book.''
Pillai had said that two affidavits submitted by the Home Ministry on the Ishrat Jahan case were contradictory to each other. Pillai was the Home Secretary and Chidambaram the Home Minister when the affidavits were filed in 2009.
Referring to former Home Secretary GK Pillai's reported statement on LeT operative Ishrat Jahan, Singh said, ''affidavit in her was changed, two affidavits were filed.''
''Why was there a need to file second affidavit,'' he questioned, adding, ''There was political interference in changing affidavit in Ishrat Jahan case.''
His comments came in response to furore over the controversial remarks of former home minister P Chidambaram on Afzal Guru and ex-home secretary GK Pillai on Ishrat Jahan in Lok Sabha with BJP claiming that the erstwhile UPA government had tried to settle scores with its political rival Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Pillai was recently quoted as saying that two affidavits submitted by the Home Ministry on the Ishrat Jahan case were contradictory to each other.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, who held the home and finance portfolios in the UPA government, had recently said in an interview that the Afzal Guru case was "perhaps not correctly decided" and that there were "grave doubts about the extent of his involvement" in the Parliament attack. Afzal Guru was hanged on February 9, 2013.