Bihar government dismisses BJP allegation on Yasin Bhatkal

PATNA: Under attack by BJP for not making custodial interrogation of IM mastermind Yasin Bhatkal and his associate, Bihar government today said it was part of the interrogation with the central agencies and since there was no case registered against them here the state did not take them into custody.


"Bihar police was involved along with IB and NIA in interrogating Bhatkal and his associate Asadulla Akhtar alias Haddi," state police chief Abhyanand told reporters.

He said Bihar police alone could not be given credit for arresting the two as central agencies and police of an another state were also involved.

Former Deputy Chief Minister and senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi had yesterday charged the Nitish Kumar government with being soft towards terrorists and the state police not only tried to avoid claim of arresting the two terrorists but failed to take them into custody for quizzing on Bodh Gaya blasts and unravelling terrorism network here.

Modi had alleged that despite their arrest in Raxual in Bihar's East Champaran district, the state "created pressure" on central agencies to show their arrest in Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP leader had also sought to embarrass the JD(U) for describing the Gujarat encounter victim Ishrat Jahan as the "daughter of Bihar" since her mother is said to have hailed from the state. Applying the same yardstick, he asked them to embrace Bhatkal as "damaad" (son in-law) of the state as his father in-law Md Irshad Khan hailed originally from Samastipur district.

Abhyanand said that since no case had been registered against Bhatkal here, there was no rationale in taking the two into custody for interrogation.

He said the Bihar police was engaged along with NIA and IB in quizzing the IM operatives in Bettiah, Motihari and Patna.

Abhyanand, however, refused to divulge details of the interrogation.