Minutes after blast, party leader tweets politics
Senior Congress leader Shakeel Ahmad's unwarranted remark soon after a terror attack near the Bharatiya Janata Party's office in Bangalore on Wednesday reflects the mindset of his party. Although senior leaders of the Congress rushed to downplay Mr Ahmad's statement that the blasts will benefit the BJP on the eve of the Assembly election in Karnataka, the fact is that the Congress has always explored ways to politicise terrorism. It may be recalled that senior party leaders like Mr Digvijaya Singh had gone to the extent of ridiculing the Batla House encounter in Delhi where a Delhi Police officer sacrificed his life battling terrorists holed up inside the building. A few Congress leaders even visited the homes of terror suspects in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh in the wake of the incident, and Mr Salman Khurshid claimed that Congress president Sonia Gandhi had tears in the eyes when she saw images of the militants gunned down during the Batla House encounter that took place in September 2008. Even before and after this, Congress leaders have left no opportunity to politicise terror attacks. Remember, one of the first reactions from Mr Singh to the 26/11 incident was that Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare, who lost his life in the carnage, had spoken with him hours ago. The senior Congress leader stated this in the backdrop of criticism that Karkare had received from the Sangh Parivar when the former was investigating a few ‘Hindutva' leaders in connection with some terror strikes. Clearly, Mr Singh was deviously trying to put two and two together and politicising the incident. He had to eventually shut up and clarify that he never meant that ‘Hindu elements' had planned or executed the carnage, after Karkare's widow slammed him by so correctly remarking that his immature statements only helped Pakistan's cause. The fact that the Congress high command has never acted against leaders who have repeatedly made obnoxious remarks, demonstrates that it is comfortable with playing politics over terror, and that its dismissal of such statements is only for public consumption. Nor has it shown the spine to stand up to its allies who have taken positions contrary to that of national interest in dealing with terror. A good recent example is the outpouring of sympathy for Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru, after he was hanged. leaders of the National Conference, which governs Jammu & Kashmir in collaboration with the Congress, virtually attacked the Centre for hanging Guru. The Congress took it lying down.
While casting aspersions on and imputing motives to political rivals is bad enough, what is worse is that Congress leaders who shoot their mouths off don’t realise that their utterances result in focus being shifted from the crucial task of identifying and punishing the perpetrators of the crime. Once politics is dragged into acts of terror, investigating agencies come under enormous pressure and have to struggle to conduct a fair and impartial probe.The last thing that probe authorities need is political pressure or gentle nudges of the kind that come camouflaged in the remarks that Congress leaders have been making. The task before the agencies is to find and punish the attackers, regardless of the country, community or caste they belong to.