The Kerala CPI(M)’s controversial ally, Abdul Nasser Madhani, is in fresh trouble after a local television expose claimed on Thursday that Madhani’s wife Sufia was in close contact with terrorists when Madhani was in jail for eight years from 1998.
But Madhani said, “I was expecting such
allegations. You will hear more such lies.”
Madhani has widened the rift between state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who is backing him and Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan who is opposed to any alliance with him. On Thursday however, CPI(M) refused to comment on the expose.
The television report said Majid Parambhai, one of the accused in the torching of a state bus near Kochi, called her at least five times before the incident on September 8, 2005.
Majid later confessed that Sufia ordered the torching of the bus to avenge the insults she suffered when she visited her husband in Coimbatore jail. Madhani was in jail for more than eight years for his alleged role in the Coimbatore blasts in 1998.