"Why are you (Sonia Gandhi) maintaining a conspicuous silence on those kind of statements emanating from very responsible quarters? We would like to know... It is very unfortunate. We condemn this," telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said at a press conference here. He said "we are quite intrigued by the voices coming from the Congress establishment."
READ ALSO: Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar calls Paris attack 'obvious backlash' to war on terror
Commenting on Congress leader Mani ShankarAiyar's remarks on the Paris terror attacks, he said "it is a shameful, rabid justification of the attack on journalists in Paris."
The Union minister said Aiyar is a senior leader and he carries weight in his party and thus BJP would like Congress to clarify.
Aiyar had on Thursday described the Paris terror attack as a "backlash" and a "reaction" to the manner in which the war on terrorism is being waged and noted that Muslims were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan without any discrimination of being "innocent" or "guilty".
"It was imminent that there will be a reaction. So, I think the way the war on terrorism has been going on, it was known that it will have this kind of reaction. It is happening now and France needs to see how it can be prevented. We have to accept that since the time the war on terror began in the aftermath of 9/11, Muslims have been killed without any distinction between the innocent and the guilty. This has been done by America in Iraq and Afghansitan. And now it seems that they will do it in Syria as well. So, a backlash to this is imminent," Aiyar had said.
Prasad asked when the whole world was fighting terrorism and standing as one, what was the Congress party leadership's view.
"We would like to ask Sonia Gandhi why she is silent on these statements. We see a pattern in this," he said, citing examples of how Congress leader Digvijay Singh had questioned the Batla House encounter and how former home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde talked of 'saffron terror' at a party function in Jaipur.
"Madam Sonia Gandhi! Your partymen demand an answer from the Prime Minister in Parliament everyday, Parliament is not allowed to function. Why is there silence on comments of your prominent leaders," he asked.
"In the light of the gruesome experience of terrorist attack, I would expect Congress party now to stop vote bank politics," Prasad said, adding it should take the issue of terror seriously and understand the country's position.
On the Paris terror attack, Prasad said "the cruel, ugly face of international terror is becoming evident," adding that in India one has been saying terror comes from neighbourhood. "There are people patronizing it and it is spreading like an infection," he said.
The senior BJP leader said "You cannot segregate terrorism. The fight against terrorism cannot be fought by having a differential kind of level."
He noted that innocents should not be framed in terror cases but at the same time corrective measures needed to be brought in the system to prevent such things from happening.
"Any civilized society governed by the rule of law cannot ignore the cancerous effect of the scourge of terrorism... The sin of those who have patronized, who have facilitated, who have condoned the rise of those elements cannot be ignored at all," Prasad said.
Prasad attacked Congress spokesperson Ajoy Kumar for "talking the language" of Islamabad when he questioned the government and security agencies for thwarting a "terror attempt" in the high seas off the Gujarat coastline recently.
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