Congress playing with fire by trying to implicate Modi: Venkaiah Naidu

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday contended that the Congress was playing with fire by trying to implicate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the Ishrat Jahan case.

He said it was shocking that after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed the charge-sheet the case, the Congress was trying to politicize the issue and gain mileage. He alleged that the Congress was even ready to compromise on the nation's security.

"One should not forget that the Congress is notoriously known for misusing the CBI, in its favour, to harass its political opponents, to keep the supporting parties under control and also to win over the neutrals as and when necessary," he said in a statement released by the party.

Quoting a report by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), he said, there were 555 cases of alleged staged killings from 2009-10 to 2012-13 from across the country. Uttar Pradesh tops the list with 138, followed by the Congress-ruled Manipur (62) and Assam (52). Gujarat is 17th on the list with eight cases.

On the Ishrat case, the BJP leader said the Gujarat Police didn't go to Maharashtra and abduct Ishrat but she travelled to Ahmedabad with three others including two Pakistani nationals. He claimed that after the shoot-out, the Lashkar-e-Taiba website said the people killed were its members and termed them martyrs.

He said the CBI had come out with fanciful theory that the Intelligence Bureau under the central government and the Gujarat Police under the state government came together to plot the gunfight.

The IB, which was then under the direct supervision of the then national security advisor, has been maintaining that the operation was based on taped conversations between terror operatives and their handlers from across the border.

Naidu said having failed on all fronts, Congress was trying to divert the attention of the people and hence resorting to the dirty tricks to tarnish the image of the BJP and its leaders particularly Modi as they feel he is their potential threat politically.