NEW DELHI: Members thumped desks when Home Minister Rajnath Singh lauded Saifullah’s father Mohammad Sartaj for his refusal to accept his son’s body saying “if he could not be loyal to the country, how can he be ours”.
“The government is proud of him and I am sure Parliament too is,” he said.
The NIA will probe suspected terror cases, including the Lucknow encounter in which an alleged terrorist linked to a train blast was killed, Singh said.
While the Uttar Pradesh police shot dead suspected terrorist Mohammad Saifullah yesterday, six suspects have been arrested by cops in Madhya Pradesh and UP on terror charges, Singh said in a statement in the Lok Sabha.
“Further investigations will be handed over to the NIA,” he said.
Saifullah was suspected to be linked with the blast in the Bhopal-Ujjain train in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday.
Sartaj, Saifullah’s father refused to accept his body saying, “My child has done a wrong thing and I have regrets for it…I would have handed him over to the police had I had about it…The entire world would have seen and noticed how a father could put his own son in police hands.”
“There is no need to hide a disease, else it becomes an incurable wound,” Sartaj told reporters.
“We are Indian citizens. I was born here, my ancestors were born here,” he said, adding, “Almost everyone in the family is sad. But it is more shame than sadness for what he has done.”
Uttar Pradesh Police (ADG UP) Daljeet Chaudhary said the youth was self-radicalised and was influenced by ‘literature’.
“These days, people self-radicalise themselves. They read their literature and come under its influence. Also, they follow social media for the same,” Chaudhary told the media.
“The above sequence of events presents an excellent example of coordination amongst state police and central agencies. Due to the prompt action taken by the police of both the state, a possible threat to national security was successfuly averted.