Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 15 (IANS) The Congress-led opposition in Kerala Tuesday criticised the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) for continuing links with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Abdul Nazir Maudany.
Maudany and his wife Sufiya have been linked to T. Nazeer, the arrested south India chief of Pakistani terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) convenor P.P. Thankachen challenged the CPI-M to publicly disown the PDP.

“We have already made our stand towards the PDP and we have made it clear that we will have no relation with them. CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan never said a word on not having any relations with the PDP, and Local Administration Minister and senior CPI-M leader Paloly Mohammed Kutty said they have no guilt in associating with the PDP,” Thankachen told reporters here.

The Kerala police last week named Sufiya as the 10th accused in the 2005 Kalamassery bus burning case. The case was in the news after Nazeer is learnt to have told investigators that he had been in constant touch with Sufiya before and after the bus was burnt.

Nazeer and his accomplice were taken into custody on the Meghalaya border early this month for his role in the 2008 Bangalore bomb blast.

Thankachen said the CPI-M had, in fact, helped Maudany by brushing the case “under the carpet”.

“Here also the CPI-M extended all help to Maudany because for the past nearly four years, this bus burning case was kept under the carpet. When the central agencies and the Karnataka police found out from Nazeer the role of Sufiya, the Kerala police made her an accused. This was actually meant to save Sufiya,”he said.

CPI-M leader Vijayan was largely instrumental in roping in Maudany to campaign for the Left Democratic Front in the May 2009 Lok Sabha polls, much against the wishes of Chief Minister V.S.Achuthanandan, who refused to share the platform with the PDP chief.