RSS denies any link to journalist who met Hafiz Saeed

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Ram Madhav, who recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, on Tuesday asserted that journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik has no relation with the RSS, saying a person roaming around with Congress leaders is not from the Sangh fountainhead.

“Vaidik saab has no relation with RSS. The person who roams around with Mani Shankar Aiyer and Salman Khurshid is not from RSS,” he said, adding, “In any case Hafiz Saeed is a terrorist. With regard to India he is a criminal. Whenever he comes to India, he will be brought as a criminal under the Indian law and order system,” Madhav said.

His comments come after Congress party, including its vice president Rahul Gandhi, described Vaidik as an “RSS man” and questioned whether the Indian High Commission in Islamabad had facilitated the meeting between him and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed.

On Vaidik’s remark on integrating Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Kashmir into one country, Madhav said, “Crores of people in this country might have crores of self-opinion. PoK area is part of India. It’s Pakistan’s illegal and unconstitutional occupation. To free it, is the one and only resolution of the Indian Parliament. That sankalp  (commitment) has to be fulfilled.”

On whether the scribe’s statement hurts the sentiments of the people, he said, “It definitely does.” He declined to elaborate further.

Meanwhile, calling it diversionary tactics of the Congress, the government has distanced itself from the meeting between Vaidik and Saeed, saying the journalist was “neither authorised nor representing the government or BJP”.

Vaidik had met the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, said to be the parent organisation of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba, in Lahore on July 2 while touring Pakistan along with a group of journalists and politicians invited by a peace research institute.