The Bharatiya Janata Party has blamed the Manmohan Singh government for not “ensuring” the prosecution agencies in the United States to pursue the Tahawwur Rana case “properly” to get his conviction in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack.
Wondering whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. presented all the evidence against him, party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad asked why the Indian government did not pursue the case properly.
He referred to a case by the kin of some Jews killed in the Mumbai attack, saying the government should involve the Indian community in New York and “ensure” that this does not meet the fate of the case in Chicago in which the trial court acquitted Tahawwur Rana of all guilt in the Mumbai terror case.
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The party suggested it smelt a “deal” between the FBI and Pakistan as neither wanted to expose the role of the Inter Services Intelligence in this sordid affair. Mr. Prasad pointed out that Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram had gone on record alleging that the ISI was involved in the Mumbai attack.
React fast: Modi
Ahmedabad Special Correspondent writes:
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Describing the Chicago court's acquittal of Rana as “America's game to please Pakistan,” Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi demanded that the Centre react immediately to the judgment.
The decision threw up many new questions before all those fighting against terrorism, he said talking to journalists on the sidelines of a programme to inaugurate a solar power project near Modasa in Sabarkantha district.
Mr. Modi said the court decision apparently was a “joint game plan of the United States and Pakistan” to keep the fountainhead of terrorism happy.
He hoped that the Centre would take up the matter strongly with the U.S.