Sushil Modi

Patna, Sept. 1: Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi today cited an eight-year-old incident to attack the state police for not registering case against Yasin Bhatkal, the co-founder of the Indian Mujahideen.

“As many as 12 Maoists engaged in a war against the royal Nepal army had sneaked into a Muzaffarpur hospital in 2005 to undergo treatment. They were arrested and kept behind bars for over a year,” Modi said.

He told reporters that the Maoists were the citizens of Nepal and had no cases lodged against them in the state. “The police instituted cases against them after nabbing them. Why did the police fail to lodge case against Bhatkal despite the fact that he was reported to have recruited many youths from the state in his terror outfit?” asked Modi.

Ridiculing the remark of director-general of police Abhayanand that Bhatkal had no case against him in Bihar, the BJP leader pointed out that the Delhi police had arrested Bhatkal’s father-in-law Irshad Khan from Samastipur two years ago. He was still in jail.

“Are these facts not enough to link Bhatkal’s activities with the state and institute case against him?” Modi asked.

Charging the state government with “protecting” terrorists, Modi asked why the state was shying away from sharing credit of Bhatkal’s arrest despite the Union home minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, was on record describing his arrest as a “big catch”.

Modi, who was the deputy to chief minister Nitish Kumar till the NDA was intact, claimed that the state police were in possession of evidence suggesting that Bhatkal had practised Unani medicine in Darbhanga in the name of Dr Imran and had lured many poor and unemployed youths to his terror outfit.