BJP says Congress should apologise for “Hindu terror” claims

THe ruling Bharatiya Janata company (BJP) on th welcomed the acquittal of all the vii accused in the 2008 Malegaon blare caseful and attacked the Congress, accusing it of coming up with the theory of “Hindu terror” to appease its “Muslim votebank”, and demanded an apology from the leadership of the Opposition party. The Congress hit back, accusing the BJP of “polarising” every issue.Nearly 17 years after the blast in Muslim-dominated Malegaon in Maharashtra claimed six lives in 2008, a special NIA court in Mumbai acquitted all seven accused, including former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit on Thursday, noting there was “no reliable and cogent evidence” against them.“The Congress can go to any extent to appease its vote bank. This case was a well-calculated conspiracy of the party for sheer vote-bank politics,” BJP lawmaker and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters after the court’s verdict.He slammed Congress veterans and former home ministers P Chidambaram and Sushilkumar Shinde for promoting the idea of saffron and Hindu terrorism. Chidambaram used the term while addressing the annual conference of DGPs and IGPs on August 25, 2010, he said.“There was no evidence against any of the accused. Colonel Purohit, who fought against terrorism in Kashmir, was accused. Pragya Thakur was accused of using her motorcycle in the blast. She was tortured so much that she could not walk after that. This was a Congress conspiracy for sheer vote-bank politics,” Prasad said, demanding an apology from the Congress leadership.On Wednesday, Union home minister Amit Shah during a special discussion on Operation Sindoor in the Rajya Sabha had slammed the Congress for coining the term Hindu terror, while asserting that “Hindus can never be terrorists”.Welcoming the court verdict, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in a post on X said: “Terrorism was never saffron, is not and will never be.”The RSS, BJP’s ideological fount, also hailed the verdict, saying the truth has been clarified by the court decision regarding the Malegaon blast case.“Some individuals, driven by personal interests and political motives, misused power in a malicious attempt to associate Hinduism and the entire Hindu community with terrorism. Through a lengthy judicial process and based on facts, the court has today, with its decision, nullified those baseless allegations,” RSS chief spokesperson Sunil Ambekar said.Maharashtra deputy CM Eknath Shinde, who is also the president of Shiv Sena, an NDA partner, said the verdict has wiped off the stigma on the Hindu community.“Truth is never defeated. After a long battle of seventeen years, a special court has acquitted seven alleged accused in the Malegaon bomb blast case. It is true that justice was delayed, but it has once again been proven that truth is never defeated,” Shinde wrote on X.Hitting back at the BJP, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters: “They (the BJP) polarise everything. There was no good prosecution, good evidence was not collected… how should this matter be let go, if this is what the government has in mind, then what do they do on the prosecution side?”His party colleague Digviyaya Singh dismissed BJP’s charge, saying the Congress never coined the term saffron terror. “There is no terrorism on the basis of religion. There is neither Hindu terrorism nor Islamic terrorism. Every religion is the embodiment of love, faith, truth and non-violence. There are only a few people who use religion as a weapon of hatred. But you keep saying that the term Hindu terrorism was given by the Congress. You are absolutely wrong,” Singh told reporters.Maharashtra Congress chief Harshwardhan Sapkal asked the state government if it will move the higher court against the verdict to ensure justice is delivered in the Malegaon case.“As soon as the verdict of the 2006 bomb blast was announced, the state government challenged it before the Supreme Court. Will the state government show the same will in this case, as both were the act of terrorism and the perpetrators of the cases should face justice,” he said, referring to the recent acquittal of convicts in the 2006 Mumbai blasts case. The top court set aside the HC order.Speaking to reporters in the Parliament complex, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said, “Will the Modi government and the Maharashtra government challenge the verdict in Supreme Court? Or will they continue their hypocrisy on terrorism?”(With inputs from Mumbai bureau)