Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 13 (IANS) Communist Party of India-Marxist state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan Sunday defended Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman Abdul Nazir Maudany, now under the police scanner for his links with alleged South India chief of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) T.Nazeer, as well as the state police’s investigations.
It was Vijayan who 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.

“There was no agreement between the Left and the PDP. After the elections, our central committee found out that the sharing of the platform with the PDP did not do any good,” said Vijayan but refused to criticise Maudany.

“Maudany, after being exonerated and released from the jail (2007)in the Coimbatore blast case, said that he is turning a new leaf and will not go the way he took prior to 1998. It was the Congress and their allies who sought Maudany’s help in the 2001 assembly elections. Then he was an accused in the case. After they won the elections, leaders like Oommen Chandy went and visited Maudany in jail to thank him for the support,” Vijayan said.

Complimenting the Kerala police for naming Maudany’s wife Sufiya as an accused in the 2005 bus burning case, he said it was not the Karnataka police but the Kerala police which implicated Sufiya. Media persons contended before him that Kerala police were forced to name her after the Karnataka police had found out her links with Nazeer.

“Why did not the Congress government do anything in the bus burning case which happened in 2005 when they were in power? It was just because our government is committed to root out terror that a strong stand was taken,” said Vijayan.

Meanwhile, Communist Party of India (CPI) state secretary Veliyam Bharghavan said with the exposure of links of PDP leaders with terror activities meant the Left was right in its stand to keep away from Maudany’s party.