Author: Newsroom Staff
Publication: News Room Post
Date: June 19, 2015
URL: http://www.newsroompost.com/210312/skeleton-cong-cupboard-rajiv-saved-convicted-felon-85/
Aggressively demanding resignation of Sushma Swaraj for helping Lalit Modi secure travel documents to be able to look after his cancer-affected wife, the Congress has a more embarrassing and controversial past which time cannot obliterate. Digging into the annals of Congress’ history, one finds that none other than the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was accused of helping his convicted friend get pardon from the then US President.
Going by a report published in news website ‘Catch’, allegations were mounted against former Congress Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during his visit to the United States. Shockingly, the allegations were much more grave and accounted for much greater culpability.
The website reports “Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister in 1985 helped a childhood friend, convicted and sentenced in the US to a long jail term, get a presidential pardon”.
On June 11, 1985, then US President Ronald Reagan granted presidential pardon to the convicted felon – named Adil Shahryar. This was the day when then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi landed in US on a state-visit to the country.
Rajiv’s friend Adil was facing 35-year sentence in US prison for attempting to blow up a ship and 4 other related offences. Adil was the son of Muhammad Yunus, India’s ambassador to several countries, special envoy to Indira Gandhi and a long-time friend of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
It was widely reported in the media that the convicted felon Adil was released as part of quid-pro-quo arrangement between Rajiv Gandhi and Ronald Reagan. Reports said that US agreed to release Adil on the condition that India will not push for extradition of Warren Anderson, the fugitive CEO of the Union Carbide, who escaped accountability for the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984.
Does it not call for an answer from the Congress party which is training guns at External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje? The fact of the matter is that there are several skeletons in the cupboard of the Congress party. The Congress spokesmen from Anand Sharma, Randeep Singh Surjewala to Jairam Ramesh are relentlessly mounting attack on both Swaraj and Raje, but they are conveniently side-stepping the incident of Rajiv Gandhi having once helped a convicted person. When BJP spokesman Sambit Patra had pointed it out during one of his panel discussions on some news channel, the Congress spokesman was seen looking sideways.
Moreover, the website reports, “Rajiv allegedly helped Anderson in securing a release from an arrest on a personal bond of Rs 25,000, fly to New Delhi on a state government plane and eventually escape from the Indian judicial system to the US.”
Bhopal gas, tragedy considered as World’s worst industrial disaster happened on the night of December 2-3, 1984 and by that time Rajiv Gandhi had already taken over the reins of the nation. Official figures had posted the death toll at 2,259 while the toxic gas leak impacted many lives many years later.
India did not put in a request with American agencies for Anderson’s extradition till 2003. If one tries to draw a parallel between the two cases, Rajiv Gandhi getting presidential pardon for a convicted felon and not pushing for extradition of fugitive CEO Anderson (charged with manslaughter) is bigger violation of law than Sushma helping Lalit attain UK travel documents to fly to Portugal.
Irrespective of the gravity of crime, none of the parties can claim moral ground. Indeed, Sushma owes an explanation over ‘humanitarian help’ and why an assistance to a fugitive should not be treated a criminal act. For Congress, the ground may be saggier than it could realise.
Leave aside questioning Sushma’s defence, it will have to look within and may even question its past for not honouring the loss of lives in Union Carbide gas leak tragedy. |