Mecca Masjid verdict: Cong questions NIA, BJP says politics of 'defaming' Hindus exposed

The acquittals of five accused in the Mecca Masjid blast case today prompted the Congress to question the functioning of the National Investigation Agency under the Modi government, but the BJP asserted that the court's decision had exposed the opposition party's politics of "defaming" Hindus for votes.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the accused in such cases had been acquitted ever since the BJP-led NDA government was formed four years ago, and claimed that people were losing faith in investigation agencies.

A special anti-terror court in Hyderabad acquitted Swami Aseemanand and four others in the Mecca Masjid case, ruling that the prosecution failed to prove charges. A massive blast had ripped through the Mecca Masjid on May 18, 2007, during Friday prayers, killing nine people and wounding 58 others.

Hyderabad MP and AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said justice was not done in the case and accused the premier investigation agency NIA of not pursuing the case properly.

The BJP, however, latched on to the verdict to fire a fresh salvo against the Congress for the use of terms such as "saffron terror" and "Hindu terror" by its senior leaders and former Union home ministers P Chidambaram and Sushil Kumar Shinde.

Its spokesperson Sambit Patra accused Congress leaders of practising "politics of appeasement" in their stand on the court's verdict and wondered what the UPA government did in its over seven years of rule following the blast.

"For its appeasement politics, the Congress targeted and defamed Hindus and the country for merely some votes. That conspiracy has been exposed. The Congress has been unmasked and exposed like never before," Patra said.

Patra demanded that Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his predecessor Sonia Gandhi apologise for defaming Hindus if they had an "iota of intimacy" with the country. He alleged that the opposition party's leaders had learnt to target the community from them.

He said people would teach the Congress "a lesson" in the Karnataka Assembly polls as they had in the 2014 Lok Sabha election when it was reduced to 44 seats.

Hitting back at the Congress leaders for blaming the BJP government for the acquittals of the accused, he alleged that the opposition party adopted "double standards", as it had welcomed a court order in favour of the accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case, involving leaders of the Congress's allies, officials and businessmen.

Patra also noted that the Congress was in power for seven years after the blasts and asked what it had done during the period.

When asked about the verdict, former Union home minister and Congress leader Shivraj Patil said, "I find it very difficult to say whether this is wrong or correct."