The Congress today targeted the BJP over its alleged links with an accused in the gruesome Udaipur murder and a captured Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist, saying it is shocking that a "party that loses no opportunity to preach to Indians about nationalism" has members "deeply implicated in violent anti-national activities".
The party appealed to the people to see "through the BJP's fake nationalism and its disturbing willingness to flirt with anti-national forces".
"What kind of an ideology finds place for both Nupur Sharma and Riyaz Attari? And accommodates radicals like Talib Hussain? Is the BJP inspired by the alliance between the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League in which extremists of all religions banded together to prevent nationalist forces like the Congress to come to power?," a statement by senior party leader and spokesperson Pawan Khera said.
This comes after it was found that a wanted Lashkar-e-Taiba, captured in Jammu and Kashmir Sunday, was an active member of BJP and the party's Minority Morcha social media in-charge in Jammu.
The BJP has blamed the party's online membership drive, through which people are joining without a background check.
In the Udaipur case, the Congress had pointed to media reports and social media posts to allege that one of the main accused in the gruesome murder is a "BJP member".
Kanhaiya Lal, a tailor, was brutally murdered, shortly after he put up an online post in support of suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma, whose remarks on Prophet Muhammad had sparked a massive row.
The BJP has vehemently denied links with the killers of Kanhaiya Lal. "We have no links to either of the accused," Sadiq Khan, the chief of the BJP's minority wing in Rajasthan, told the media, stressing that the killing was a failure of the Congress government in the state.
The Congress today said "these are not simple coincidences" and listed other BJP functionaries who, it alleged, were "caught participating at behest of Pakistani agencies in terrorism and espionage".
"Former BJP leader and ex-sarpanch Tariq Ahmad Mir was arrested two years ago for procuring weapons for Hizbul Mujahideen commander Naveed Babu. Naveed Babu had previously been arrested with DSP Davinder Singh who had himself been accused of supplying weapons to terrorists. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has confirmed that Mir is an associate of Davinder Singh's. The truth would have come out had the Davinder Singh inquiry been carried through to its conclusion, but it was halted midway," the party alleged.
"In 2017, the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested the BJP IT Cell member Dhruv Saxena along with 10 accomplices for spying for the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, including by setting up an illegal telephone exchange that allowed their handlers in Pakistan to impersonate Indian Army officials and collect national security information. A picture of Saxena with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan also went viral," the Congress alleged.
In 2017, it said, a special NIA court sentenced Assam BJP leader Niranjan Hojai to life imprisonment for participating in a Rs 1,000 crore scam to divert government funds to support a militant group.
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