Both Cong, BJP communal -- Azmi

Both Cong, BJP communal -- Azmi
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NAGPUR, OCT 2: Mumbai Pradesh Samajwadi Party chief Abu Asim Azmi, while lashing out at both Congress and the BJP, termed them as communal parties and flayed them for their anti-Muslim stand.

Addressing a thinly-attended public meeting here yesterday Azmi said that ``For over 48 years after independence the Congress continued to poison the society, spreading canards against the Muslims and using them merely as a vote bank. Now, the BJP has followed suit for the same purpose.''

Azmi, who had been jailed for almost two years under TADA and has been charged with being an ISI agent, challenged the police anywhere in the country to arrest him. ``If helping my breathren and victims of the police and communalists is being anti-national then I admit my folly and challenge the police to arrest me here and now,'' he said.

Without naming Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, Azmi launched a venomous attack against the latter. He called him a leader of the `firkaparasts' in the country. They must desist from their nefarious activities or be ready to face the backlash from the minority community, he warned.

He spoke at length on Babri demolition and its aftermath. He held thethen Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao responsible and even called him a RSS stooge. He declared that Muslims will oppose the construction of atemple at the disputed site. ``If necessary we will sacrifice hundreds of Muslim volunteers to stop building of a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya,'' he said and added: ``We could not do anything when the Babri mosque was demolished. But we can certainly do a lot now by destroying those who committed this grave crime.''

Condemning the subsequent bomb blasts in Mumbai after the Babri mosque demolition, Azmi said those found guilty must be punished, but the law of the country must be equal for all its people, irrespective of their religious affiliations.