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BJP defends ABVP activists

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party has attributed Thursday’s attack by ABVP activists on S.A.R. Geelani, who has been acquitted in the Parliament House, to “patriotic emotions.”

Rajiv Pratap Rudy, BJP spokesperson, said here on Friday that his party had “taken note” of the protest by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and felt that the action should have been “more hygienic.”

Asked to explain what he meant, he said the party did not approve of ABVP activists spitting on Mr. Geelani, who is a lecturer in the Zakir Husain College here.

Mr. Rudy justified the breaking up of the seminar here, to which Mr. Geelani had been invited, by saying “although he had been acquitted” his role in the attack on Parliament was “not above suspicion.”

Asked whether the role of the RSS leadership in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was above suspicion, as was evident from court records, he said “that is a valid question.”

In a written statement, Mr. Rudy said: “Something serious had emerged in the University Community meeting as it was organised by a particular group in which pseudo-secular sympathisers and certain radical groups had come together. More so, the clean chit [given to him by court] was not so clean as there was incriminating evidence … his association with militants cannot be denied and we can say he was saved [in the court] by the skin of his teeth and the cloud of mistrust still prevails.”

Mr. Rudy condoned the behaviour of the ABVP activists, who vandalised the Arts Faculty building, attacked and abused those who gathered at the seminar and spat on Mr. Geelani, by saying that “the surcharged emotions of patriotic students can’t be simply ignored.”

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