Cong-NCP tussle over alleged demands made by 26/11 terrorists

A war of words has broken out between the Congress and its coalition partner in Maharashtra, the NCP, over the alleged demands made by the terrorists during the November 26 Mumbai attacks, reports Debasish Panigrahi.

A war of words has broken out between the Congress and its coalition partner in Maharashtra, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), over the alleged demands made by the terrorists during the November 26 Mumbai attacks.

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Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on Monday reiterated the terrorists had taken some people hostage during the 62-hour-long siege and had demanded the release of some terrorists. He added that the government had not accepted the demands.

The state Home Minister, Jayant Patil, who is from the NCP, had on Sunday claimed that no such demand had been made by the terrorists.

On Thursday, Hindustan Times had reported that the objective of the 10-member Lashkar-e-Tayyeba fidayeen squad was not just to kill innocent people but also to seek the release of several terror operatives, including the 20 members of Indian Mujahideen, presently lodged in Indian prisons. They had planned to attain this task by creating multiple hostage situations and seek the release of the terrorists in return for safe release of the hostages.

However, the plan could not materialise due to prompt police retaliation, technical problems faced by the mobile phones they were carrying and the killing of the group’s leader Ismail Khan early in the attack, arrested terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab has revealed during his interrogation.

(with inputs from Pradip Kumar Maitra in Nagpur)