Bihar treated Bhatkal as 'damaad': BJP

The BJP on Friday accused the Bihar government if treating the country’s top terror suspects with kid gloves, as part of its larger policy of ‘appeasing’ such elements.

The BJP on Friday accused the Bihar government if treating the country’s top terror suspects with kid gloves, as part of its larger policy of ‘appeasing’ such elements.

Leader of the opposition in Bihar legislative council Sushil Kumar Modi and BJP vice-president CP Thakur said they were shocked the state police made no attempt to interrogate IM terrorists Yasin Bhatkal and Asadullah.

“The way Bihar gave up custody of the two top terrorists despite their well established nexus in the Darbhanga region, suggests the state government was not interested in unravelling anti-nationals activities on its soil”, he said.

Modi claimed the Bihar government wanted the arrests to be shown as having taken place in Uttar Pradesh, due to political considerations, although the two were picked up near the Bihar-Nepal border.

“It was only after UP's refusal to own up the arrests that they were shown to have taken place in Bihar”, said Modi, deputy chief minister till the BJP was ousted from the Nitish regime on June 16 after a row over Narendra Modi.

Sushil Modi also took a dig at a JD-U leader's remark earlier that Ishrat Jahan was “Bihar's daughter as her grandfather lived in Khagaul (Danapur) in Patna”.

“Now, the same people might start calling Bhatkal Bihar's 'damaad' (son-in-law), as the terror mastermind is married to a girl whose father was originally from Samastipur”, Modi quipped.

He blamed Bihar for being “soft towards terrorism and Maoism” despite the state's 'unfortunate' links with a string of terrorist attacks across the country in the last few years.

Modi said in the last two years, nearly 18 terror suspects had been arrested from Darbhanga, Madhubani, Samastipur and Purnea.

“Bhatkal himself had spent time in Darbhanga, which showed Bihar was being used as a safe haven by terrorists as the Bihar government chose to look the other way”, he added.

He recalled when the Karnataka police came and picked up some terror suspects from Darbhanga-Madhubani area, chief minister Nitish Kumar was quick to reprimand them, saying, they had the responsibility to alert the Bihar police before stepping in to arrest Bihar citizens.

Kumar had also objected to use of names such as 'Darbhanga module' of IM as such phrases tended to hurt people in general. But when it is a question of anti-national activities, why does the Bihar police shy away from questioning such people", Modi wanted to know.

BJP vice-president CP Thakur said the Bihar government’s soft approach towards terror had resulted in the growth of the ‘Darbhanga module’ of terror, in which Bhatkal was a leading player.

Modi and Thakir said Bhatkal and his IM were the key suspects even in the serial bomb blasts in Bodh Gaya. “Now that the NIA is probing the case, it will interrogate the terrorists in that connection. But Bihar cannot shy away from its responsibility in allowing it to happen".

BJP MP from Darbhanga Kirti Azad said the attitude of “extolling terrorists would prove dangerous for the country”.