Jammu July 9 : Senior Congress leader and AICC representative Sdr. Sukhpal Singh Khera (MLA) today hit out at the ruling BJP for its numerous terror connections which need explanation from the party besides a high-level probe.
Addressing a media conference at PCC HQ here today on behalf of the AICC, Shri Khera questioned BJP for its various terror links in its cadres and with various leaders including the recent one of LET Commander Talib Hussain Shah in J&K & Riyaz Ahmed Attari in Rajasthan. Besides Chief Spokesperson Mr. Ravinder Sharma, Senior leaders of PCC including General Secretary Th. Balwan Singh, Yogesh Sawhney, Manmohan Singh, Sdr. Gurdarshan Singh, Neeraj Gupta, Gajan Singh, Kapil Singh, Sahil Sharma, Chander Shekhar and others, were also present in the press conference.
Shri Khera launched a scathing attack on the BJP for various incidents of terror connections in the past, which is a very serious and unfortunate situation that the saffron party leaders takes nationalism high on its agenda for the vote bank politics and question the nationalist credentials of others who have sacrificed lives for the nation but then the presence of terrorists in their cadres goes unexplained by BJP.
Referring to the issue of Talib Hussain Shah, a dreaded LET terrorist prominent leader of IT Cell of BJP in J&K, who was spotted in the photograph with even Home Minister, Shri Khera said how a simple denial by BJP is sufficient without a fair probe into his links. Similarly, Mohd Riyaz Attari, who was linked to BJP in Rajasthan, especially with the top BJP leader and leader of the opposition, Gulab Chand Kataria has indulged in a heinous crime of the sensational murder of Kaniya Lal, in Udaipur sending shock waves in the country.
He referred to various such incidents in the past where the terrorists were found to be linked with BJP or its senior leaders, raising questions about the ruling party, for which only a fair probe and an answer to the nation is needed.
The Indian National Congress does not believe in playing politics over serious national issues like terrorism. However multiple revelations of close links between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and individuals caught in terror activities force us to ask some straight questions of a ruling party that loses no opportunity to preach to Indians about nationalism.
It recently emerged that one of the accused in Kanhaiya Lal’s horrific murder in Udaipur was a BJP worker named Mohammad Riyaz Attari. He had joined the BJP in the presence of a senior local leader. Media reports state that Attari was employed by the son-in-law of the BJP’s Leader of the Opposition in the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha, Gulab Chand Kataria. He was seen attending numerous party programmes in the presence of senior BJP leaders.
The media has also reported that Irfan Khan, accused of masterminding the murder of Amravati chemist Umesh Kolhe, had close links with the “independent” MP Navneet Rana and her husband Ravi Rana. Everyone knows the relationship between the Ranas and the BJP. Irfan Khan is known to have campaigned and sought votes for the Ranas.
Former BJP leader and ex-Sarpanch Tariq Ahmad Mir was arrested in 2020 for procuring weapons for Hizbul Mujahideen commander Naveed Babu. Naveed Babu had previously been arrested with DSP Davinder Singh and accused of supplying weapons to terrorists. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has confirmed that Mir is an associate of Davinder Singh’s. The truth would have come out had the Davinder Singh inquiry been carried through to its conclusion, but it was halted midway.
In 2017, the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested the BJP IT Cell member Dhruv Saxena along with 10 accomplices for spying for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. The spy ring had set up an illegal telephone exchange to facilitate espionage. A picture of Saxena with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan also went viral.
Two years later Balram Singh, a Bajrang Dal leader from Madhya Pradesh, was arrested in a terror funding case.
In 2017, a special court of the NIA sentenced Assam BJP leader Niranjan Hojai to life imprisonment. He was found to have participated in an Rs 1,000 crore scam, which were diverted government funds to support a militant group. The funds were to be used to buy weapons and carry out attacks on our security forces.
The BJP has also knowingly gave a ticket to Masood Azhar’s acolyte Mohammad Farooq Khan to contest the Srinagar municipal election from Ward 33. Khan was previously a member of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.
The BJP government has the dubious distinction of having released the dreaded terrorist Masood Azhar in 1999 during the Kandahar hijacking. Azhar went on to found the Jaish-e-Muhammad terror group that was responsible for the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai attacks that caused hundreds of deaths. The Jaish also masterminded for the 2019 Pulwama attack in which 44 CRPF personnel died after 200 kg of high explosives including RDX somehow made it past multiple security checkpoints. Why an inquiry into Pulwama has not been held remains a mystery.
He said that the biggest problem of the country is facing today is that of large-scale unemployment and uncontrolled prices of all commodities and people are looted through taxes, said Khera.
He said that country is faced with highest rate of unemployment whereas the BJP Govt. had come to power while promising 2 crore jobs annually. The prices of all commodities especially petrol, diesel and LP Gas has touched record heights, the country is high in the list of global hunger Index but Modi Govt is busy in its mission of Congress Mukt Bharat rather opposition Mukt Bharat by unleashing the enforcement agencies like CBI, ED, IT etc. These agencies have never found anything wrong with top BJP leaders during 8 years or its allies or against the big tax & Bank looters. It is a serious threat to the democracy of the country, he added.
Earlier deep shock and grief was expressed by the Congress leaders over the tragedy at Shri Amarnath Shrine and expressed sympathies with the bereaved families and prayed for peace to the departed souls. They prayed for the recovery of the injured and the safety of the missing pilgrims. They also demanded adequate ex-gratia relief to the families of the deceased and seriously injured.