Political slugfest over Headley's testimony on Ishrat Jahan continues
New Delhi: The political slugfest over David Headley's deposition that Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in an alleged fake encounter in Gujarat, was an LeT terrorist, escalated on Friday with Congress asking BJP since when it has started believing in terrorists.
BJP on its part accused Congress of "whitewashing" facts due to its "congenital dislike" for Narendra Modi because it foresaw him as a "political threat".
Trashing demands of BJP that the Congress leadership should apologise in the matter, party leader Kapil Sibal said that the implicit faith in the statements of the Pakistani-American terrorist was "yet another example of opportunism of BJP."
Sibal said it was "very surprising" as also a "matter of some concern" that suddenly BJP and its leaders have got implicit faith in terrorists and what they say.
"All over the world, Headley is a known terrorist, not to be believed. Suddenly BJP finds truth in what he says", Sibal said, taking a jibe at the ruling party remarking that it would now also believe in what terrorists Masood Azhar and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi are saying.
"Since when has BJP started believing terrorists?" Headley yesterday said that Ishrat Jahan, who was killed in 2004, was actually an Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT) operative.
Seeking an apology from Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and other party leaders lined up to "weave a fictional tale" to target Modi, then Gujarat Chief Minister, the BJP also virtually defended the police personnel arrested for killing Ishrat, saying the then UPA government made sure they were put behind bars.
"A battery of Congress leaders were lined up who went on giving statements there are evidences (against BJP leaders), there are conversations happening, there are people who said the man with white beard and black beard. It was done because Congress has a congenital dislike for Modi," BJP leader and Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a party briefing.
"He much to their dislike was the state's chief minister. Who much to their dislike ran the state so successfully that they foresaw a potential political threat to themselves and so they targeted him... They wove theories like white beard, black beard," he added.
