New Delhi, Sept. 23: The Congress today said the revelation that Dawood Ibrahim's wife visited India and returned unnoticed reflected an "abject security failure" and both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Rajnath Singh should furnish an explanation.

Arguing that the BJP governments' track record on national security and terrorism has been extremely bad, the Congress demanded that responsibility be fixed for the "lapse".

Congress communications chief Randeep Surjewala said: "Mehajabin Shaikh, the wife of Dawood Ibrahim, India's most-wanted terrorist, had been in Mumbai in 2016 for over 15 days and returned to Pakistan. This was stated by Thane police in a shocking revelation reflecting abject failure of national security.

"This disclosure puts a huge question mark on the ability of the BJP government to nab Dawood and exposes the glaring chinks in the security and intelligence apparatus of the (BJP) governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra."

Surjewala argued the fact that the wife of a global terrorist could enter and leave India freely had exposed the vulnerability of the security mechanism of the Modi government.

"History is dotted with the BJP's compromise on national security, which is reflected in actions like the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in Kandahar, Afghanistan, by the previous BJP government," he said.

Azhar heads the Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan and perpetrates terror on Indian soil everyday, Surjewala said. "It is also intriguing as to how the names of various BJP leaders crop up whenever there are questions about links to Dawood," he added.