Ahmed Patel has asked Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to take the terror case to its logical conclusion
Ahmed Patel, the senior Congress leader who was accused by the BJP of links to a terror suspect, has told Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to take its probe against the two suspects to its logical end and ensure that matters of national security aren't made "prisoners of politics".
Mr Patel's letter to the Union Home Minister comes days after the Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani convened a late evening press conference to point accusing fingers at the Congress leader. Mr Rupani had attempted to link Mr Patel to the terror suspect because he was a technician at the same hospital where the Congress president's political adviser had been a trustee till 2015.
The two men were arrested by Gujarat's anti-terror squad on suspicion of plotting an attack on Ahmedabad's Abraham Synagogue on Wednesday, the same day elections to the 182-seat assembly were announced.
"Framing terror charges must be done by law enforcement agencies and the judiciary and not by political leaders in press conferences from party headquarters," Mr Patel said.
"We should rise above political differences in matters which involve national security," he said, describing the ruling party "vitiating" a serious ongoing investigation "extremely disturbing".
"Matters of national security cannot be a prisoner of politics and neither should be reduced to baselessly maligning political opponents for petty electoral gains," he said.
Kasim Stimberwala, according to this report, had quit as an echo-cardiogram technician from Sardar Patel Hospital in Ankleshwar district of Bharuch district and had got a job and a work visa for Jamaica. He planned to leave for Jamaica after carrying out the attack at the synagogue.
It was at the Sardar Patel hospital that Mr Ahmed had been a trustee, according to the Congress, till 2015. There were more than a dozen other trustees but the Chief Minister suggested he wasn't concerned about the rest.