Digvijay Singh and Shashi Tharoor remarks on Yakub's hanging spark row

New Delhi: A political slugfest erupted on Thursday morning over the hanging of Mumbai 1993 blasts convict Yakub Memon. AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, both, sparked a controversy with their remarks. The Congress Party tried to distance itself from Mr Singh’s remarks.

In a series of tweets, Mr Singh said: “Yakub Memon hanged. Exemplary urgency and commitment has been shown by Govt and Judiciary in punishing an accused of Terror. I hope similar commitment of Govt and Judiciary would be shown in all cases of terror irrespective of their caste creed and religion (sic).”

“I have my doubts the way the cases of other Terror accused are being conducted. Let’s see. Credibility of the Govt and Judiciary is at stake,” Mr Singh said.
In other tweets, Mr Singh pointed to the “coincidence” between the hanging of Memon and the last rites of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on the same day, and advised Indians to be “liberal, secular and modern”.

Mr Tharoor said he was “saddened” by the news that “our government has hanged a human being. State-sponsored killing diminishes us all by reducing us to murderers too.”

The remarks by Mr Singh and Mr Tharoor led to angry ripostes from the BJP. Union minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, attacked Mr Singh, saying his comments “seek to question the judicial process”, and spoke of Mr Singh’s attempts at “alignment” between judicial process and politics. "It is regrettable and unfortunate," he said.

Mr Prasad said he chose to ignore Mr Tharoor’s tweets against the hanging and added he was “more troubled” by Mr Singh’s comments as he was a Congress general secretary, was a chief minister for 10 years and was an “adviser” to party vice-president Rahul Gandhi.