Ahmedabad: Union Minister and BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Saturday said Congress must come clean on allegations that its leader Ahmed Patel had links with one of the two youths arrested for suspected ISIS links in Gujarat. “Congress must come clean else blot on them will be larger than that for corruption. It is not mere coincidence that Patel had deep relations with a hospital that also had links with terrorists,” Naqvi said while addressing a press conference.
“Instead of taking action, Congress is busy in accusing BJP of politicising the issue. This makes Ahmed Patel even more questionable,” Naqvi said while seeking a response on the matter from Congress President Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
His comments came a day after Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said the hospital that employed one of the two arrested youths for suspected ISIS links was being “managed” by Patel. Demanding resignation of the Congress leader, CM Rupani said Rajya Sabha MP Patel should explain the circumstances behind employing the youth and why the accused resigned days before he was arrested.
“I congratulate the ATS (Anti-Terrorist Squad) for having caught two terrorists (lawyer Ubed Mirza, 29, and Kasim Steamerwala, 31) in time. Had it not been so… a big disaster would have happened,” Rupani had said at BJP headquarters in Koba, Gandhinagar on Friday. The Gujarat CM also claimed that the terrorists had been plotting to attack a Hindu Godman, Hindu shrines and a synagogue, adding that they were well-prepared with passports and visas to flee abroad.
Despite resigning as a trustee of the hospital in 2014, Patel continued to run the show at the hospital where former President Pranab Mukherjee was invited to inaugurate the premises in 2016, said CM Rupani, alleging that Patel had hosted the event and was present on stage.
Jayesh N Patel, a trustee of the Sardar Patel Hospital and Heart Institute denied that “Ahmed Patel or any of his family members are connected with the hospital and the trust in any away’’. In a statement issued this evening, the hospital trustee said that “some elements are levelling baseless allegations against the hospital’’.
Rubbishing these allegations, Patel said the claims were baseless. “My party and I appreciate the ATS’s effort to nab the two terrorists. I demand strict and speedy action against them. The allegations put forward by BJP are completely baseless. We request that matters of national security not be politicised keeping the elections in mind. Let’s not divide peace loving Gujaratis while fighting terrorism,” he tweeted.
