PATNA: The statement, “Ishrat Jahan Bihar ki beti”, has come back to haunt Nitish Kumar. The Chief Minister is again at the receiving end after the 2008 Mumbai attacks accused David Headley’s deposition that 19-year-old Ishrat was a Lashkar-e-Taiba “suicide bomber” who was killed in an encounter on June 15, 2004, near Ahmedabad. Leaders of BJP and its allies demanding a public apology from Nitish, for calling Ishrat “Bihar ki beti” (Bihar’s daughter).
Accusing Nitish of playing politics on the issue of national security, BJP leader and Union Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Giriraj Singh said the chief minister had said so for the sake of votes and sought a public apology for his ignorance.
Nitish, however, got unexpected support from state Health Minister Tej Pratap Yadav, the elder son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. He also called Ishrat the daughter of Bihar.
Earlier, JD(U) MP Ali Anwar had come out in favour of Ishrat and had said, “I, as a public representative of Bihar, feel proud of Shamima’s (Ishrat’s mother) continuous legal fight for justice. When I learnt that Shamima is a native of Bihar, I felt proud that a sister of Bihar is tough enough to fight a strong political power.”
In the face of mounting attacks by political rivals, Anwar said, “How can you trust Headley’s statement? He is not Harishchandra (god of truth). All of us know his dubious background.”
Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, Prem Kumar, said the chief minister’s statement was only to appease the minority community ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Nitish and JD(U) had raised the issue of the fake encounter and linked Ishrat to Bihar in 2013, nine years after the incident and after parting ways from the BJP in the state. JD(U) took this stand after the CBI chargesheet said that the encounter was fake.
BJP leaders had earlier accused Nitish of going soft on terrorists such as Yasin Bhatkal and Assadullah, key Indian Mujaheedin operatives who formed the so-called ‘Darbhanga module’. A resident of Maharashtra, Ishrat was born in Shahganj locality of Patna in 1985 and had stayed at her grandfather Wali Mohammad’s house. After the demise of her father Shamim Raja in 2002, she had migrated to Maharashtra with her mother Shamima Kausar.