Tuesday last week Home Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh made his official visit to the offices of the National Investigative Agency (NIA). The BJP and NIA have longstanding differences. The BJP had accused NIA of bias because of the many terror cases launched against members of the Sangh Parivar. The most prominent is the ongoing case related to the Samjhauta Express bomb blast in which for the only time Pakistani citizens were also victims. The NIA has accused RSS member Swami Aseemanand to be the mastermind behind the terror attack.

This writer has pointed out half a dozen times that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in America conducted a detailed investigation to discover that several identified Pakistanis perpetrated the train terror and they were directed and financed by Hafiz Saeed. The NIA in its contrary findings nailing Hindu terrorists for the act simply ignored the findings of the FBI which were accepted by the United Nations (UN). Consequently the UN imposed sanctions against Hafiz Saeed which could not be administered because China used its UN veto to block them and protect Hafiz Saeed. This glaring contradiction between the findings of the FBI and UN on the one hand and NIA on the other is simply ignored by Indian politicians and media alike. Mr. Rajnath Singh’s visit to NIA merited interest to see if he would seek clarification about this contradiction.

Mr. Rajnath Singh instead simply showered high praise on the NIA. He said: “I am happy NIA has evolved into a credible investigative agency and is doing good work…it has acquired a reputation of impartiality that was once associated with the CBI alone.” Currently the CBI Director is under the Supreme Court’s scrutiny for dubious meetings with many accused individuals under investigation by the agency. Therefore one cannot say if the Home Minister was speaking with tongue in cheek. Suspicion that he was being sarcastic was heightened by another remark he made: “My desire is that NIA evolves into an agency of international repute like FBI.” The same FBI which made findings diametrically opposed to what NIA alleges?

One appreciates that the Home Minister has a responsibility to raise morale of officers serving under him which is why he might have been constrained to praise NIA. But the Minister also has a responsibility to ensure that justice is done. And given the glaring contradiction between the reports of FBI and NIA one cannot be certain that justice is being done. If Mr. Rajnath Singh was indeed sincere in his unqualified certificate given to NIA then his government owes an apology to Hafiz Saeed. Apart from his provocative and hate inspired statements the hard evidence about Hafiz Saeed’s direct involvement in terrorism is culled from inputs by the FBI. If the FBI is wrong and NIA is right should not BJP announce that poor Hafiz Saeed is a defamed innocent? How ironic that this writer deemed a BJP critic defends Swami Aseemanand. BJP leaders have callously abandoned him.