JAMMU: Caught in devil and deep sea over murky affairs of arrested “wanted” Lashksr- e -Toiba (LeT) militant Talib Hussain Shah association with J&K BJP, the saffron leadership in a press conference on Monday visibly appears beating around the bushes on an alarming issue for which the party is facing bashing from every corner of society.
Unable to give any satisfactory reply to straight queries of media persons as to how a militant commander of LeT was appointed as Media incharge cell (Minority Morcha) for Jammu Province and reality of viral pictures of him rubbing shoulder with party senior functionaries including Home Minister of India, the BJP spokesperson Advocate Abhinav Sharma was seen trying its best to deviate the focus from sensitive issue and urge for screening of mediapersons working with hundreds of social media channels, portals and news websites.
Looking visibly nervous while trying to defend its party over the association of arrested militant Talib Hussain, Abhinav Sharma fails to dissuade the scribes as to how a militant make his inroads into the party and was appointed in May this year as in-charge of the J&K BJP’s social media wing for minorities cell.
Interestingly, the order for Talib’s appointment to the key post in the saffron party was issued none other than by a senior party leader namely Sheikh Bashir, the J&K president of the BJP’s Minority Morcha on May 9.
The letter of appointment which is viral on social media reads “Mr Talib Hussain Shah, at Drag, kot Ranka, budhan, District Rajouri, shall be the new IT & Social Media Incharge BJP Minority Morcha Jammu province with immediate effect (sic),” the order, copies of which had been sent to senior BJP leader Ashok Kaul and the national president of its Minority Morcha.
For Abhinav Sharma, instead of demanding screening of mediapersons it would better if he insist for setting his party’s house in order and devised ways and means for application of this criteria to verify antecedents of those joining BJP in J&K to save it from further damage.
Surprisingly, Talib’s Facebook profile was taken down following his arrest on Sunday obviously as dozens of photos showing him rubbing shoulder with BJP’s J&K president Ravinder Raina, BJP’s MP from Jammu Jugal Kishore and above all with Home Minister of India and circulating like hot cake in social media.
Though, late in evening J&K BJP Party President Ravinder Raina claimed that Talib had never been associated with party but the fact remains that the issue is turning into a massive political row with the opposition Congress as well as mainstream political parties has launched scathing attack on BJP thereby blaming it for “sponsoring terrorism” in Jammu and Kashmir.
“The party which boost itself of issuing certificate of Nationalism now expose for issuing letters of appointment to hardcore terrorists, states Ravinder Sharma of Congress while addressing a press conference at party headquarter in Jammu.
Stressing that BJP must explain it to the nation as to how dreaded terrorists safely have been enjoying patronage in the saffron party, the Congress said “First the main accused in the Udaipur murder incident and now the arrest and identification of LeT commander of Peer Panjal range Talib Hussain as senior office bearer of BJP is matter of great concern”.
Similar concern was also raised by PDP Party President Mehbooba Mufti and NC supremo Dr. Farooq Abdullah.
“Imagine if any of these culprits were associated with any opposition leader. By now multiple FIRs would be lodged & godi media would lap it up by devoting endless prime time space to discredit the opposition” Mehbooba Mufti tweets.