Was Afzal Guru not a terrorist? Anurag Thakur asks Cong

Mathura, Feb 26: BJP's youth wing chief and MP Anurag Thakur today criticised former Home Minister P Chidambaram for his remarks on Afzal Guru's hanging in the 2001 Parliament attack case, and asked Congress whether it held the same view.

Slamming Chidambaram, who was the Union home minister when Guru's mercy plea was rejected in 2011, Thakur said, "What did he do to stop it?"

Chidambaram has been quoted as having said in a newspaper interview that he felt it was possible to hold an "honest opinion" that the Afzal Guru case was "perhaps not correctly decided" and that there were "grave doubts about the extent of his involvement" in the Parliament attack. Afzal Guru was hanged on February 9, 2013.

"Does Congress not believe that Afzal Guru was a terrorist? They will have to come up with an answer since (Congress vice-president) Rahul Gandhi is always seen with people who call terrorists like Guru a 'martyr'," he said.

Speaking on recent revelations regarding the Ishrat Jahan case by former Union home secretary G K Pillai, Thakur said rather than rewarding senior officials for such revelations, Congress sent them to jail just for political rivalry.

"They knew that the then Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi may come to the power, hence they misused IB, RAW, CBI and manipulated a section of media," he said. Speaking on JNU issue, he said there are only a few students there who support Maoism and Naxalism, and term terrorists as 'martyrs', hence blaming the whole university would be wrong.

"But people who talk ill of the country, cannot stay in the country," he said.

PTI