Thaindian News

Ahmedabad/New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday said it backed the government’s stand that the violence in northeast India and the return of the region’s people home from other states were being “deliberately instigated” by elements in Pakistan.

Responding to a query during a press conference at Ahmedabad, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said the BJP denounced the violence in the northeast and the exodus of the region’s people from cities in other states following mischievous SMSes warning of attacks.

Referring to India’s stand that Pakistan-based elements were using social media sites to circulate false pictures and stories to whip up communal sentiments, Jaitley said: “The Congress has made a very important disclosure and I am certain the government has examined it in all seriousness.”

“We are one with the government that this trouble is being deliberately instigated in our country at the behest of our western neighbour.”

The BJP wants peace in the northeast and rest of the country, he said.

The BJP leader also reiterated the party’s position that the recent violence in Assam that claimed over 70 lives was due to influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

“This has upset the sociological balance in the state, leading to social tensions,” he said, and accused the ruling Congress of ignoring the problem.

In New Delhi, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari said that Congress minister Sriprakash Jaiswal had stated in the Rajya Sabha that there are over one crore illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh in India.

Commenting on the “porous border”, he said: “Anybody can go in and out of the 270-km border with Bangladesh in Assam”.

Gadkari said it would take around Rs.750-800 crore to erect a secure fencing along the border with Bangladesh, like he had witnessed in Israel.

“Does the country not have so much money to spare?” the BJP president said, adding that terrorists have made the country their “adda” (hangout).

India on Sunday took up with Pakistan the issue of social media sites’ being misused by Pakistan-based elements to whip up communal sentiments in the country.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told his Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik, whom he called up, that elements based in Pakistan used such sites to circulate false pictures and stories so as to whip up communal sentiments in India.