Shekhar Chinchwade, Vice President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Pimpri-Chinchwad, has put up banners in the city hailing Sameer Kulkarni, one of the seven accused acquitted in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, as a "modern-day Bhagat Singh."
After being acquitted in the case recently, Kulkarni expressed his gratitude towards the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court. He further slammed the then-incumbent Congress state government, alleging that they were engaging in appeasement politics ahead of the 2009 Maharashtra elections.
"We immediately expressed gratitude to the court... We fought this legal battle for the self-respect of the majority Hindu community. The then Congress government committed this heinous act of Muslim appeasement for the 2009 state elections, and they were also unable to save the lives of Malegaon's innocent victim taxpayers," Kulkarni said.
Kulkarni further hit out at several Congress leaders and mentioned that he would not have been able to come out of jail alive if the government had not changed in 2014. He also thanked the Union and Maharashtra state governments for their assistance in the matter.
"If the Hindu community had not realised its duty and changed the government in the country in 2014, we could not have come out alive. This is why we express our gratitude towards the central and state government... I call out to the Hindu community to never vote for Congress so that no innocent is trapped again...," Kulkarni said.
Kulkarni also made serious allegations against investigative agencies handling the Malegaon blast case, stating that evidence was erased and tampered with.
"Even the ATS and other officers were pressurised and evidence was erased or manipulated... There were a lot of ATS officers who didn't know their statements were falsely recorded by their seniors... The main reason for framing us was that we were opposing the illicit work of the Congress government," Kulkarni said.
(With ANI inputs)
