Lahore, Jan 22: Mumbai attacks mastermind and LeT founder Hafiz Saeed today sought to exploit Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s jibe against RSS and BJP saying Indian "propaganda" against Pakistani organisations of spreading terror now stood "exposed". He also said demanded that India be declared a terrorist state.
Saeed, who now heads JuD, made a ridiculous demand asking the Pakistan government to take steps to get India declared "a terrorist state" by the UN Security Council.
A day after Shinde accused BJP and RSS of running terror camps and indulging in Hindu terror, he went to the extent of levelling an accusation that Indian organisations were "involved in all kinds of terrorism in Pakistan".
Saeed, for whom the US has announced a USD 10 million bounty, told a press conference here that India always resorted to propaganda against Pakistani organisations but it now stood "exposed".
He claimed: "India tried to involve us in the Mumbai attacks but after a passage of five years, nothing has been established against us in the courts" .
In Delhi, the RSS demanded Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s removal describing his remarks as "unpardonable".
"It is unpardonable. We take strong exception to it," RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said.
He earlier tweeted, "Today Jamat ud Dawa etc congratulated Shinde. Now he has become d (sic) darling of real terrorists. It is Shinde who is helping our enemies by such statements. Now even LeT welcomed his statement I am told."
Madhav said, "the whole world has seen the consequence of this utterly careless and insensitive statement of the Home Minister calling Hindus as terrorists."
He said today the banned terrorist outfits like Lashkar-e -Taiba and Jamat ud Dawa have been complimenting Shinde for his statement and wished he becomes Home Minister of the country where such organisations flourished.
"The Minister and his party have a lot of explanation to do. The whole country has been greatly offended," Madhav said.
"It is very shocking that holding such a high constitutional position and trying to promote enmity between religious communities in a country by invoking such phrases as Hindu terrorism," he said.
The RSS spokesperson said the Home Minister’s statement amounted to communalising terrorist incidents and politicising bomb blast investigations and influencing them.
"This is now utter politics. This is actually communalising terrorist incidents in the country...It is all politicising bomb blast investigations in the country.
I believe that the (remark of the) Home Minister is actually intended to influence the investigations that are going on in the bomb blast cases," he said.He also criticised Congressmen like Digvijay Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar for supporting Shinde’s remarks and said he was not surprised at their action "as they lend respect to terrorists and disrespect nationalists".
Describing Shinde as a "lightweight" Home Minister, BJP Chief Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded an unconditional apology from Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over Shinde’s allegation.
"Sushilkumar Shinde must be sacked and the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi must tender an unconditional apology," Prasad told reporters here.
"The BJP shall not tolerate this repeated insult of Hindu and saffron traditions of India," he said, adding the party has never linked religion with terror as terrorists had no religion.