By IANS
New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday stoutly denied Congress charges that Afzal Guru, the main accused in the Dec 13, 2001, terror attack on the Indian parliament, was arrested two days before the attack and let off when the party was in power.
Replying to the Congress charge, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said here: “In 2001, he was once again rounded up for interrogation by the Jammu and Kashmir police but not formally arrested.”
Prasad added: “He was rounded up for questioning on 11 occasions by the J&K police between 1993 and 1997 on grounds of suspicious activity.”
“However, during the NDA regime when he was identified as one of the main conspirators in the attack on parliament, he was charged, tried and convicted and sentenced to the gallows for waging an attack on India,” explained Prasad.
The Congress Thursday alleged that the NDA regime had caught and let off Afzal Guru two days before the terrorist strike on parliament.
Prasad also tried to distance the NDA from the then Kashmir government notwithstanding the fact that the National Conference, which was ruling the state then, was a partner in the NDA and its representative Omar Abdullah a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry at the centre.
He said: “The NDA never detained or let off Afzal Guru; it was the Kashmir government.”
As for letting off Jaish-e Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar in 1999 by the NDA in the wake of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 hijacking to Kandahar, the BJP spokesperson said that since the lives of 200 people were involved, “The press, the Congress and the relatives demanded that they (terrorists) be released. That was not the ideal situation then, it was the best possible situation.”
Asked about Peter Bleach, the main accused in the Purulia Arms Drop case, who was allowed by the NDA to leave India in spite of being convicted of waging war against the state – the same charge as against Afzal Guru – Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “That charge is completely wrong. We deny that charge.”
The BJP leader said: “The core issue is whether one fights terror and terrorists with commitment and conviction or with convenience and an eye on the vote bank. This is the crucial benchmark that differentiates the BJP and the NDA as against the Congress and the UPA.”