New Delhi: The BJP Thursday accused the Congress of coining the ‘Hindu terror’ theory in its rule to stop the rise of the saffron party and to appease Muslim vote bank, on a day when all seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case were acquitted.
The Opposition, however, demanded that the government challenge the special NIA court’s verdict in a higher court.
Welcoming the acquittal of all accused, including former BJP MP Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, in the case in which six people were killed, the ruling party also demanded that Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi apologise.
BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded that the discharged accused should be compensated and the prosecution should apologise for allegedly using torture and planting evidence to frame them.
Action should be taken against the officials who allegedly tortured and framed them, Prasad said.
“The Congress can go to any extent to appease its vote bank. This case was a well-calculated conspiracy of the party for sheer vote-bank politics,” he said, calling the verdict day historic.
Prasad claimed that the Congress’ attempt to force onto the country the possibility of a Hindu terror organisation and saffron terrorism has fallen flat.
It is the same Rahul Gandhi who is now running away from truth, he said.
Slamming former home ministers P Chidambaram and Sushil Shinde for “promoting” the idea of saffron and Hindu terrorism, the BJP leader alleged that Chidambaram used the government machinery to frame people in false cases and spread this narrative.
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, whom the BJP accused of being responsible for coining the term “saffron terror”, said terrorism should not be associated with any religion and that no faith advocates violence.
Underlining that all religions are rooted in peace, he dismissed allegations by BJP leaders that the Congress had coined the term “Hindu terrorism” for political gain.
AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi questioned the “hypocrisy” of the BJP government on terrorism over the acquittal of all seven accused and demanded the Centre challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court.
Nearly 17 years after a blast in Malegaon town of Maharashtra claimed six lives, a special court in Mumbai on Thursday acquitted all seven accused, including former BJP MP Thakur and Lt Col Purohit, noting there was “no reliable and cogent evidence” against them.
In the verdict, Special Judge A K Lahoti flagged several loopholes in the prosecution’s case and the investigation carried out, and said the accused deserved the benefit of doubt.
Terrorism has no religion, the court said, adding it cannot convict on mere perception.
Thakur and Purohit hailed the court’s order.
Thakur said the acquittal was not just a win for her, but for “bhagwa” (saffron), as their acquittal rekindled the ‘saffron terror’ narrative buzz. “Bhagwa ki vijay hui hai.”
Reacting to the court verdict, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said “terrorism was never saffron and will never be”.
Congress should apologise to the Hindus for the “fake narrative of saffron terror”, he said.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath termed the acquittal of all seven accused as the “living proclamation” of ‘Satyamev Jayate’.
In a post on X in Hindi, Adityanath said, “This decision once again exposes the anti-India, anti-justice and anti-Sanatan character of the Congress, which has committed the crime of tarnishing the image of crores of Sanatan believers, saints and nation-sevaks by coining the false term ‘saffron terrorism’.”
“The Congress should publicly admit its unpardonable misdeed and apologise to the country,” he said.
Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini alleged that the “saffron terror” theory was a propaganda spread by Congress under a conspiracy when it was in power.
Maharashtra Deputy CM Eknath Shinde welcomed the verdict and said, “It has been very unfortunate for those innocent people who have spent the last 17 years in jail. Today, they all have been acquitted.”
Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh of RSS, Sunil Ambekar, hailed the court’s verdict and said it brought out the truth.
The verdict of the Malegaon blast once again proves that there is no term like “Hindu terror”, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
When asked about “saffron terror”, BJP leader Uma Bharti said, “Terrorism has no colour. Assigning colours to terrorism was the doing of those who claimed to speak for minorities. In doing so, they coined terms that politicised and distorted the nature of terrorism.”
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said extremists are those individuals who distort religion to spread hatred.
The Rajya Sabha MP said, “Neither can a Hindu be a terrorist, nor a Muslim, Sikh or Christian. Every religion is an embodiment of love, goodwill, truth, and non-violence.”
Owaisi asked, “Will the Modi government and the Maharashtra government challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court? Or will they continue their hypocrisy on terrorism?”
He said the acquittal, coming 17 years after the blasts, raises serious questions about the investigation.
“The investigation was deeply flawed. Despite the NIA saying military-grade RDX was used, no accountability has been fixed as to where that RDX came from,” Owaisi said.
Samajwadi Party leader Fakhrul Hasan Chand said the families of those who lost their lives in the Malegaon bomb blast deserve justice.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said, “I didn’t expect anything different. In 2014, the NIA, which was investigating the Malegaon blast case came under direct jurisdiction of Amit Shah.”
Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde said the court verdict was a slap on the face of the Congress, and demanded an apology from the party for its “saffron terror” narrative.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said there is no such term as “saffron terrorism”.
“Sanatan Dharma is sacred. A Hindu cannot be a terrorist,” said BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya.
The “Hindu terror bogey” has been busted, BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said after the verdict. He added that it was not just a court verdict but a moral indictment of those who defamed an entire faith for electoral gains.
“Who will be held accountable for years of humiliation, injustice and media trials? Will Rahul Gandhi apologise to the nation and all Hindus?” Bhatia asked in a post on X.
PTI
