Gujarat terror remarks: Shakeel Ahmed meets Sonia Gandhi

Congress general secretary says Oppn trying to divert nation's attention from NIA's observations

Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed on Tuesday met party chief Sonia Gandhi in the wake of controversy over his remarks linking 2002 Gujarat riots with birth of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen even as he accused BJP of diverting the nation's attention from NIA's "observations".

Party leaders remained tight-lipped over the meeting and on whether he was summoned by Gandhi following the controversy.

Ahmed's remarks have not gone down well in the party, which distanced itself from the same yesterday with party spokesperson Renuka Choudhary saying, "It is not the party line as of now".

After BJP's blistering attack on the Congress over his remarks that this was the ruling party's "desperate strategy" to communalise the electorate ahead of the 2014 elections, Ahmed today hit back saying the opposition party was trying to divert the nation's attention from the NIA's observations.

"By dramatised hue & cry BJP spokespersons are trying to make it my statement simply to divert the nation's attention from NIA's observations," Ahmed said on Twitter.

He later stated that he was only saying what the NIA had said earlier.

"Indian Mujahideen (IM) was formed after the Gujarat riots, says NIA in its charge sheet. Even now BJP and RSS will not desist from their communal politics?," Ahmed had said on Twitter.