Vijayan attacks BJP calls Amit Shah an "embodiment of communalism"

Dharmadam (Ker), Mar 8 (PTI) Hitting back at Union Home
Minister Amit Shah, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on
Monday called him an "embodiment of communalism" and said the
BJP leader was jailed for the crimes of alleged "kidnapping
and fake encounters", a reference to the Sohrabuddin Sheikh
case.
In a tit-for-tat a day after Shah posed him questions
over the gold and dollar smuggling cases, the Marxist leader
asked the union minister whose name had been mentioned in the
charge sheet of "a fakeencounter and kidnapping" cases.
"Amit Shah is an embodiment of communalism. He will do
anything to nurture communalism. Even though he became a union
minister, he has not changed much. The leader of RSS which
propagates communalism is here to teach us secularism,"
Vijayan said.
The sharp retaliation came a day after Shah at a poll
rally in Kerala slammed Vijayan for attacking the central
agencies probing gold and dollar smuggling cases and sought to
know whether or not the main accused had worked in his office
and if the CM's office had tried to influence the Customs
officials in the cases.
"The chief minister is alleging that the central
agenciesare acting as political tools (of BJP-led NDA
government). Iwould like to ask a few questions. I want to
ask the CM if the dollar/gold scam main accused had worked in
his office ornot?" Shah had asked, referring to Swapna
Suresh, who has beenarrested in connection with the cases.
Vijyan on Monday said: "He asked me certain questions
yesterday. I would like to remind him that I was not the one
who was jailed for kidnapping. Does Amit Shahremember whose
name was mentioned in the charge sheet of a fake encounter
case, was arrested and then jailed?
"The same person was accused of murder, kidnapping,
extortion and illegal surveillance. And on a mysterious death,
is he speaking from his own experience?" Vijayan asked at a
election rally at Dharmadam in Kannur district.
He was referring to Sohrabuddin Sheikh "fake encounter
case" in which Shah was arrested in July 2010. Shah, who had
resigned as Gujarat home minister, was discharged from the
case by a CBI court in December, 2014.
Shah had in his speech on Sunday also mentioned about a
"mysterious death related to the gold smuggling case", to
which Vijayan said the matter will be probed if the Home
Minister provided more details about such an incident.
Referring to the deaths of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife
Kauser Bi and her brother Tulsiram Prajapathi, Vijayan alleged
"they were all fake encounter cases. Who was charged for all
these crimes? The name is Amit Shah," he said, claiming the
CBI court Judge B H Loya, who was hearing those cases, died
mysteriously.
"Post-mortem report was reportedly tampered with. The
family of the judge is still awaiting justice. Will any BJP
leader talk about this? We all know about the snooping case of
2013. Later the complainant woman herself dropped the case.
Who was in jail for that? If you do not act as per the
position you are holding, we will be forced to list out your
misdoings," Vijayan added.
Loya had died of cardiac arrest in Nagpur on December 1,
2014 when he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague's
daughter. The Supreme Court had dismissed pleas seeking an
independent probe into the death of judge Loya, ruling that he
died of natural causes.
Vijayan, who launched the LDF campaign from his
constituency for the April 6 assembly polls, also lashed out
at Shah, saying he 'insulted' the state by raising various
corruption allegations against the Left government.
Vijayan also accused the opposition Congress-led UDF and
the BJP of opposing the Left front government in "one voice"
with their leaders "concocting stories" to defame his
government.
Attacking the BJP, Vijayan said the agenda of RSS is to
communally divide the society and the leader of such a party
"came here to teach us secularism" and said it was Shah who
had been behind bars in connection with a fake encounter case.
In a sharp attack, Vijayan referred to the 2002 Gujarat
riots as 'genocide' and also targeted BCCI Secretary and Amit
Shah's son Jay Shah, alleging within one year his income had
skyrocketed 16,000 times and he enjoyed "achhe din".
On Shah's charge that Kerala was the most corrupt, the
CPI-M leader said various national and international agencies
had rated and recognised it as "the least corrupt" state in
the country, but the home minister had defamed it.
The Left veteran also hit out at the Congress for
remaining silent on Shah's attack on Kerala.
He also asked Shah how the gold smuggling incidents
through Thiruvananthapuram Airport, which is under the central
government, had increased after the BJP came to power.
The airport had now become a "hub" of gold smuggling,
he said, alleging Sandeep Nair, one of the main accused in the
case, was a full-time Sangh Parivar activist.
He said even after eight months of investigation, the
central probe agencies were yet to identify for whom the gold
was smuggled and yet to question the persons who had sent the
precious metal through diplomatic baggage.
The customs had seized from the airport around 30 kg of
gold worth Rs 15 crore on July 5 last year from a diplomatic
baggage addressed to the UAE consulate.
Besides the Customs, the gold smuggling case is
beingprobed by the Enforcement Directorate and the
NationalInvestigation Agency.
During the course of the probe, the agencies unearthed
a racket involving smuggling of dollar through the UAE
consulate.
The agencies have arrested several persons, including
Suresh, Nair and Vijayan's former principal secretary M
Sivasankar, whose alleged links to the main accused led to his
removal from the top post. PTI RRT UD
VS VS

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)