The Bharatiya Janata Party has questioned the visit of Congress leader Digvijay Singh to Azamgarh and his alleged meeting with the families of alleged terrorists.
BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad described the visit as a brazen example of vote-bank politics. He said it showed a “sick political mindset.” Two days after the police arrested Shehzad Ahmad in connection with some terror attacks in Delhi, the Congress leader thought it fit to travel to Azamgarh to meet the families of alleged terrorists at Sanjarpur. “Did he ever bother to visit the families of those who died in terror attacks? And the victims have been both Hindus and Muslims,” Mr. Prasad said.
By doing this, Mr. Singh was, in fact, equating Muslims with terrorists. “Where will this stop? Will he decide to visit terrorists in jails? Or travel to Pakistan to meet them?” Mr. Prasad said.
The Supreme Court had dismissed a public interest litigation petition related to the Batla House incident in 2008, in which two Muslim youths were shot dead by the police. Inspector Mohan Sharma was killed and awarded the Ashok Chakra posthumously. The National Human Rights Commission was also not able to establish any wrongdoing by the police, Mr. Prasad said.
On the one hand the government was decorating the police officer killed in the incident and on the other a senior Congress leader was visiting the families of alleged terrorists to offer his sympathy. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister must explain this, he said.
While the BJP chose to “condemn strongly” Mr. Singh’s visit, the words it used to react to the politics of threat and intimidation of its alliance partner Shiv Sena were much milder. “What the Sena is doing is not correct … we do not agree … we are different parties and we have differences,” was all Mr. Prasad said. He, however, added that the BJP “did not like” the violence against the showing of Shahrukh Khan’s film “My Name is Khan.” The party did not approve of the Sena describing the actor as Desh Ka Dushman.
