Congress goes all guns blazing as BJP fumbles to explain ‘terror links’

In a scathing attack that hits at the rhetoric of patriotism relentlessly peddled by the BJP, the Congress party has accused the ruling party of having “direct links” with alleged terrorists and Islamic radicals.

Pawan Khera, the recently-appointed chief of the Congress’s media and publicity wing, said Indians must “see through the BJP’s fake nationalism and its disturbing willingness to flirt with anti-national forces”. Khera listed out several instances that he claimed showed a nexus between the BJP and alleged terrorists.

Khera’s offensive comes close on the heels of the arrest of two alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists – Pulwama resident Faraz Ahmad Dar and Talib Hussain of Rajouri – from Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district. It was later revealed that Hussain had been a member of the BJP’s Jammu unit and had even served as chief of the IT and social media cell of Jammu BJP’s Minority Morcha.

Also read: How a J&K village nabbed two LeT terrorists; BJP denies links to one of them

Days before Hussain’s capture, another Islamic radical, Riyaz Attari, one of the two men arrested by the Rajasthan Police in Udaipur for beheading a Hindu man, was found to be a member of the BJP’s Rajasthan unit who regularly attended the party’s events in the state and had been photographed on various occasions with senior party leaders, including former Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria. In the course of interrogating Attari and his co-accused, Ghous Mohammed, for the murder of Kanhaiya Lal, who was beheaded for speaking in defense of sacked BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, the Rajasthan police discovered that the two killers were followers of Karachi-based radical outfit Dawat-e-Islami and had visited its headquarters in 2014.

‘Tip of iceberg’ 

While the BJP units in Jammu and Rajasthan have been desperately distancing from Shah and Attari and claiming that the two were part of a conspiracy by Pakistan-based terror outfits to infiltrate the party, Khera has listed out several others instances where people for terror links were also linked with the BJP.

“Two incidents in the past week have exposed the two-faced BJP. First, we learned that one of the accused in Kanhaiya Lal’s horrific murder in Udaipur was a BJP worker. Then it emerged that a captured Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist (Hussain) in Jammu and Kashmir was not only a BJP office-bearer who had previously been captured in photos with Home Minister Amit Shah but was planning to launch attacks on the Amarnath Yatra,” Khera said.

Daring Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “open his mouth” and Shah to “come out and give a clarification” over the revelations regarding Hussain and Attari’s links with the saffron party, Khera said, “It is shocking that the BJP, a party that loses no opportunity to preach to Indians about nationalism, has members and office-bearers who are deeply implicated in violent anti-national activities.”

The Congress spokesperson alleged that Hussain and Attari’s links to the BJP were “not simple coincidences” and went on to list various instances dating over the past few years where, BJP functionaries were “caught participating at the behest of Pakistani agencies in terrorism and espionage”.

“Former BJP leader and ex-sarpanch Tariq Ahmad Mir was arrested two years ago for procuring weapons for Hizbul Mujahideen commander Naveed Babu. Naveed Babu had previously been arrested with DSP Davinder Singh, who had himself been accused of supplying weapons to terrorists. The National Investigation Agency has confirmed that Mir is an associate of Davinder Singh. The truth would have come out had the Davinder Singh inquiry been carried through to its conclusion, but it was halted midway,” Khera said.

The Congress spokesperson added that the inquiry against Singh, now suspended from service, was halted on the instructions of J and K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, a former BJP MP, on grounds that “it is in national interest that he may not be investigated further.” “Whose interest was being served here?” Khera asked.

Khera also asserted that the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad had, in 2017, busted an espionage ring in which BJP IT Cell member Dhruv Saxena, along with 10 accomplices, was “arrested for spying for the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate by setting up an illegal telephone exchange that allowed their handlers in Pakistan to impersonate Indian Army officials and collect national security information”. A picture of Saxena with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan had gone viral at the time, but Khera said no headway was made in the investigation against Saxena after the initial brouhaha.

Khera also recounted that in 2017, “a special court of the NIA sentenced Assam BJP leader Niranjan Hojai to life imprisonment for participating in a ₹ 1,000 crore scam to divert government funds to support a militant group.” The funds, Khera said, were to be used to buy weapons and carry out attacks on our security forces.

The Congress leader also accused the BJP of “knowingly giving a ticket to Masood Azhar’s acolyte Mohammad Farooq Khan to contest the Srinagar municipal election from Ward 33”. Farooq Khan was previously a member of the separatist outfit, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, and the terror group, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.

Congress plans nationwide ‘offensive’

Congress sources say that the party is planning to launch a nationwide offensive against the BJP following revelations of Attari and Hussain’s links to both terror groups and the BJP. Posters, pamphlets and hoardings showcasing photographs of Attari, Hussain, Hojai and other Islamic radicals with BJP leaders and listing out the crimes they have been charged with are likely to be put up by Congress’s state units and frontal organisations across the country to add heft to the party’s claim of the BJP’s links with alleged terrorists and fundamentalists. A hoarding to this effect has already been placed outside the Congress headquarters at 24, Akbar Road and party sources say more are likely to be installed at various locations in the national capital soon.

A senior party leader said that calling out the BJP for its links with alleged terrorists and Islamic radicals is important because the saffron party and its affiliates have, over the years, repeatedly accused the Congress of being “soft on terror and Muslim appeasement”. “All these cases… whether it was Dhruv Saxena in 2017 or Attari and Hussain now… they show a disturbing link between the BJP and terror operatives but these were never highlighted by the media or even us. It is about time we speak clearly on this and put Modi, Shah and the entire BJP in the dock and ask them to explain this hobnobbing with terrorists, militants and radicals. This is the only way to counter the BJP’s duplicitous and jingoistic rhetoric of being flag bearers of patriotism.”

Also read: Kerala a ‘breeding centre for Islamic terrorism’ under Left, alleges BJP president

Though senior BJP leaders and ministers in the Modi government have largely remained tightlipped on the allegations, the party is in a frenetic damage-control mode; claiming that there was an ‘international conspiracy’ to defame the BJP and that men like Hussain and Attari had actually “infiltrated” the party at the behest of Pakistan and Islamic terror outfits.

Curiously, both the Congress and the BJP now want the investigations against Hussain and Attari to be taken over by the NIA. However, Rajasthan Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra has also written to the NIA chief, Dinkar Gupta, demanding that the agency “conduct a thorough investigation” in the cases against Hussain and Attari and “reveal the truth of links these terrorists have with the BJP”.