Digvijay weakens India’s stand on terror: BJP

NEW DELHI: Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has once again triggered a controversy when he attempted to decouple Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s killing from the jehadi attack on Mumbai and asserted that the slain police official was like a “God to Indian Muslims”.

While the party distanced itself from the senior leader’s remarks, it gave enough ammunition to BJP to charge that leaders like Singh were weakening India’s fight against terror. “No human can be called a God. These are his personal views. Maybe, this was just Digvijay Singhji’s way of explaining some point,” Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said.

The BJP lashed out at the Congress general secretary and said Singh’s stand on “Hindu terror” would weaken India’s efforts to combat terrorism in the international arena. Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said terrorism has no religion or colour and Singh will learn about the impact when people will react to his remarks on Hindu terrorism.

“The UN resolution has said that terrorism has no religion or colour. Such statements by Singh will weaken India’s fight against terrorism,” he told reporters here.

Singh had recently stoked controversy with his comments that Karkare had called him to inform about threats from Hindutva elements on the day of the Mumbai attacks in 2008. While Congress had distanced itself from those remarks also, Maharashtra home minister had told the state assembly that it had no records to substantiate the Congress leader’s claim.