Umman Chandy meet Terrorist’s aide, BJP Demands Explanation

BJP asks Chandy to explain meeting with Madani aide

PNS | Thiruvananthapuram

The Kerala BJP on Tuesday asked senior Congress functionary and Opposition leader Oommen Chandy to explain the reason of his meeting with Poonthura Siraj, working chairman of the PDP and a relative and close aide of its chairman Abdul Nasser Madani.

V Muraleedharan, who took over as the State BJP president last week, said at his first Press conference since taking charge that Chandy, leader of the Congress-led former chief minister of Kerala, had met Siraj.

According to Muraleedharan, the meeting took place in Kottayam, Chandy’s home town on Sunday. He said Chandy had the responsibility to explain the content of the discussions between the two as the PDP, its chairman Madani and his wife Sufiya were under a cloud following the revelations in the probes into terror-related cases in the State.

“The BJP would like to know whether there was any deal in the meeting. Has the PDP pledged support to the Congress in the next local bodies elections to be held in another six months and the Assembly polls to be held next year? If that is the case, what was the assurance that Chandy gave to Siraj?” Muraleedharan asked. Chandy or the Congress had not responded to Muraleedharan’s charge.

Even when the Congress party and the UDF it was leading were charging the CPI(M) with unholy relation with Madani’s party, as the alliance in the last Lok Sabha elections had proved, the BJP had been holding that both the Marxists and the Congress were equally responsible for encouraging Madani. The UDF had allegedly sought Madani’s help in the 2001 Assembly elections when he was in the Coimbatore prison.

The police had on December 17 arrested Sufiya, wife of Madani, as tenth accused in the case of burning a Tamil Nadu State bus at Kalamassery off Kochi on September 9, 2005, allegedly to mount pressure on the TN Government to release Madani from the Coimbatore prison.

Sufiya was arrested from her residence after the Kerala High Court dismissed an anticipatory bail petition filed by her. The police arrested her on the basis of the information provided by Thadiyantavide Nazeer, said to be the South India commander of the LeT and first accused in the bus-burning case. However, she was released on bail by the Ernakulam District and Sessions Court three days later.

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