The Bharatiya Janata Party’s only Muslim MP in the Lok Sabha and the party’s national spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain on Saturday hammered the Congress over its “targeting” of BJP chief Nitin Gadkari for the latter’s forceful criticism of the delay in the execution of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
“Gadkariji was merely articulating the sentiments of India’s entire population about an issue as deadly for the nation as terrorism. But the Congress has overreacted to Gadkariji’s statement by picking up his words in an unseemly attempt to divert the nation’s attention from the over-delayed execution of a convicted terrorist,” said Mr Hussain to this newspaper in Patna.
Mr Hussain, a former Union civil aviation minister, said the Congress was “targeting” Mr Gadkari. “Love for Afzal and attacks on Gadkariji — this attitude of the Congress is incomprehensible and will not be tolerated. Afzal’s conviction in the Parliament attack case did not emerge from a BJP court but from the nation’s highest court,” he said.
“It is not at all because Afzal is a Muslim that the BJP has been demanding his execution as per the judicial verdict. He is a convicted terrorist and the BJP would have sought his execution if he were from any other religion. Terrorists have no real faith in religion. No Islamic organisation has come forward in Afzal’s support,” said Mr Hussain.
During former Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon’s visit to India, Mr Hussain reminded, BJP stalwart L.K. Advani had said that the party was against terrorism and not against Islam.
“The Congress must explain why the government has been delaying Afzal’s execution. The ruling party is also mysteriously silent on Sheila Dikshit’s statement that the delay was caused by a fiat from Shivraj Patil,” said Mr Hussain.