The Congress on Friday demanded that a Supreme Court-monitored committee be appointed to look into several cases probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), and simultaneously questioned the role of the premier probe agency in several cases pertaining to alleged “saffron” terror. At the same time, the party also questioned the need to extend the tenure of incumbent NIA Director General post retirement even though there is no dearth of good officers in the country.
On a question as to why his party is demanding the removal of NIA DG Sharad Kumar, Congress spokesman Ajoy Kumar said that this is because for the past two years it is incredibly strange that first the Government Prosecutor complained that she has been asked to go easy on a case so that the optimum action is not taken.
"The witnesses are turning hostile on a remarkably fast pace. Aseemanand made a confession that he met RSS who's who Indresh Kumar and Mohan Bhagwat, despite that the NIA refuses to continue its investigation. The strange coincidences between people from Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat - all of them meet together in these different incidents but the NIA is not able to expose or fast forward and convict people," Kumar said at AICC briefing.
Kumar, a former MP, reminded that the Malegaon case had Hemant Karkare as the Investigator from the ATS. "Hemant lost his life on 26/11 in Mumbai Attack. He was investigating and it was made very clear that he had found the actual accused in the case," he said.
The second issue, Kumar said, is that the NIA Director is saying that Col. Purohit got a clean chit in the Samjhauta Blast case. First of all, he was never an accused in the Samjhauta Blasts. So, obviously you make statements like that, you derail the whole discussion, whether it is in the Electronic, Print or Social Media and that is what our concern is," Kumar, a former IPS officer, said.
The party alleged that the NIA seems to be behaving totally like a 'tutored parrot'. Kumar said the Congress is demanding that all NIA cases should be monitored by the Supreme Court, especially all sensitive terror related cases, irrespective of whatever, have great impact on National Security - everyone of them - whether it is Best Bakery, Mumbai Blast or whether it is Malegaon Blast, the continuous compromise of the NIA in all these investigations would lead the country to a very disastrous situation.