JOIN USUproar in Rajya Sabha over Vaidik meeting Hafiz Saeed
The Rajya Sabha witnessed uproar over journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik’s recent meeting with Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of the 26/11 terror attack, in Lahore.
The government distanced itself from the issue maintaining that it had nothing to do with any journalist’s activity in his individual capacity.
The House was adjourned twice during Question Hour as the Congress disrupted proceedings demanding an elaborate reply.
Congress leader Digvijay Singh raised the matter soon after the Upper House assembled for the day, seeking to corner the government on the issue as Vaidik was considered a close aide of Baba Ramdev, a BJP sympathiser.
“It is a very serious issue. We want a statement. Hafiz Saeed is a terrorist,” Singh demanded. Other Congress leaders, including Anand Sharma and Satyavrat Chaturvedi, too, were up on their feet demanding a reply from the government. “Is there a track-two diplomacy, of which a sanction has been given?” Sharma asked.
As the Congress members refused to relent, the House was adjourned.
Govt denies role
After the House reassembled, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley clarified that the government had nothing to do, either directly or indirectly, with any journalist in his individual capacity meeting Saeed, “not even remotely”.
Jaitley said: “As far as India is concerned and the government is concerned, unquestionably, Hafiz Saeed is a terrorist, who has conspired against this country and indulged in actual acts of conspiracy. The government has nothing to do -- not directly, not indirectly, not even remotely -- with any journalist in his individual capacity meeting Saeed.”
The Congress, however, remained dissatisfied with Jaitley’s reply and created a ruckus demanding a detailed statement on the “purpose and motive” behind Vaidik’s meeting with India's most wanted terrorist.
Pointing out that Vaidik claimed to be an “intermediary and emissary”, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad sought the government to explain “whose intermediary is he? Who has sent him on that mission? Who does he represent as intermediary?”
The matter was raised in the Lok Sabha, too, by Congress MP K C Venugopal and other leaders, including E Ahmed of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).
It was a normal meeting, says scribe
Even as Congress and BJP fight over Ved Pratap Vaidik’s meeting with Saeed, the man in question has issued a clarification that he had met the terror mastermind at the instance of his journalist friends in Pakistan. “Journalists in Pakistan know me for decades.
They made a gesture (about meeting Saeed) to me and I said alright, I will meet him. It was no big deal for me. It was a simple thing. For me it was like a normal meeting,” Vaidik said. He said during his journalistic career spanning over five decades, he has had meetings with LTTE chief V Prabhakaran, Maoists in Nepal and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan.