Govt. asks Rahul Gandhi to install statues of terrorists at AICC office

Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Sunday hit back at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for accusing the ruling dispensation of suppressing the voice of students in the JNU and advised him to install the statues of separatists and terrorists at the AICC office and offer floral tributes to them.

"If Rahul ji is so much in favour of divisive mindset, he can install the statues of separatists and terrorists at the AICC office and pay floral tributes to them every day but the nation can never tolerate such divisive mindset," Naqvi told ANI.

"If the Congress Party, especially Rahul Gandhi, does not understand this and would use this for their political benefits then it won't benefit them. No country in this world would give fundamental rights to those having a divisive mindset," he added while taking potshots the Opposition for playing politics on the issue.

The Congress vice-president, who visited the JNU campus yesterday to meet the students protesting for the release of Student Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, said the most anti-national people are the ones suppressing the voice of this institution.

Gandhi, who was shown black flags during his visit to the JNU campus, said anti-India sentiments are unquestionably unacceptable.

"But the right to dissent and debate is an essential ingredient of any democracy. The Modi government and the ABVP bullying an institution like JNU, simply because it won't follow their line, is condemnable, he said.

The Congress vice-president also drew parallels between Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government and dictator Adolf Hitler's regime over the arrest of JNU students' union president in a sedition case.

Kanhaiya was arrested on Friday over a protest organized in the JNU campus on February 9 against the hanging of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.