Bengaluru, Sep 15 (PTI) Karnataka Congress chief B K Hariprasad on Tuesday called the jailed student activist Umar Khalid a nationalist.
He said the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which has opposed the screening of a documentary film on Khalid at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), has no rights to speak on the jailed leader.
Khalid, arrested in September 2020, was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for being one of the “masterminds” of the February 2020 riots that had left 53 people dead and more than 700 injured in Delhi.
“Umar Khalid is a nationalist. The ABVP has no right to speak about Khalid because the ABVP adores Nathuram Godse, who was an anti-national and a terrorist — the first terrorist of the country. They have no moral right or moral standing to speak about Khalid,” Hariprasad told reporters.
He was replying to a question on ABVP opposing the screening of documentary on the NLSIU campus.
Reacting to the Congress state chief’s statement, the RSS-affiliated student organisation ABVP said it had “exposed the intellectual bankruptcy of the Congress leader.” On the issue of implementing the Uniform Civil Code in the BJP-ruled states, Hariprasad sought to know whether the saffron party has implemented it in Goa and North East.
“What is the point of bringing in UCC? Have they (BJP) brought it in Goa? Have they implemented it there,” he asked.
The North East is entirely different in terms of religion, Hariprasad said.
“There is no uniformity between the South and the North. So, they cannot try to force anything on the people of this country,” he said.
On the reports that he was not invited for the 100 days’ event to celebrate the Congress government under Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, Hariprasad said the CM has already clarified.
Hitting out at Hariprasad, the ABVP, in a statement, said, “How can the Congress party label an individual who openly supported and commemorated a convicted terrorist named Afzal Guru, the mastermind behind the violent attack on the Indian Parliament of 2001 that shed the blood of our brave security personnel – as a nationalist.” “If Khalid is a nationalist in Hariprasad’s eyes, does the Congress party endorse those who organised events honouring and glorifying Afzal Guru,” it asked.
It also sought to know whether the Congress stands with those who raised the slogan ‘Bharat Tere Tukde Honge’ (India will be divided into pieces).
“Does Congress support the violent anti-India slogans raised in JNU and the deliberate incitement that led to bloodshed during the 2020 Delhi riots? Giving a patriot certificate to figures facing serious UAPA terror charges reveals Congress’s complete compromise on national security,” ABVP’s Bengaluru city president Abhinandan Mirji said. PTI GMS GMS KH
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