Countering Congress charges of saffron terror, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday advocated action against all Hindus involved in terrorism, saying that the menace went against the ethos of Hinduism and had no religion.
The party also criticised the United Progressive Alliance government for reviewing POTA with retrospective effect in the case of Godhra train carnage.
"Our party's viewpoint is very clear that if there are some terrorists who follow the Hindu religion then they don't understand the ethos of Hinduism. If they are involved in terrorism, then action should be taken against them as terrorism has no religion, no ethics," BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
He was speaking at a seminar on 'Politicising Terrorism' organised by his party.
Raking up the issue of alleged involvement of Hindu terrorists in Malegaon and other blasts, Prasad said that an Anti-Terrorist Squad appointed by a Congress government in Maharashtra had found during investigation that Abhinav Bharat members felt Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha would not support terror and they themselves would have to carry out the blasts.
"These men were planning to kill RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and had declared Indresh Kumar a Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence agent," Prasad said, wondering why the Congress was talking about the RSS' involvement.
He alleged that the Congress-led UPA had repealed POTA in 2004 and not allowed the Gujarat government to review POTA cases against those booked under the act in the Godhra train carnage.
The quantum of punishment is to be announced by the special Sabarmati court on March 1 against the 31 persons who have been found guilty of murder and conspiracy.
Prasad took digs at Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi for his recent comments that saffron terror is more dangerous than Lashkar-e-Tayiba's activities.
"I would not like to say much on Rahul Gandhi. He has a long way to go in understand this nation. But one statement of Rahul Gandhi has given to these terrorists what they could not achieve in more than ten years," Prasad said.
The main opposition insisted that it wants action to be taken against terrorism and cautioned parties from playing politics over the issue.
The BJP alleged that Congress leaders have the habit of first making allegations and then apologising.
"This weakens the fight against terrorism.... 12 dossiers have been given to Pakistan on 26/11 but there is no reply from them.... After saying a Pakistani was involved in Samjhauta blasts the government is now saying the Malegaon blast accused were involved. Pakistan has now started asking us what action is being taken on Samjhauta blasts," he said.
