Row over Vaidik-Saeed meet disrupts Lok Sabha

New Delhi, July 15 :

The Lok Sabha was Tuesday adjourned for a short while after members of the house created an uproar over the meeting of yoga guru Ramdev’s aide, Ved Pratap Vaidik, with 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed.

Members of the house, including Congress and Trinamool Congress leaders, disrupted the proceedings of the house during the question hour.

Amid the din, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the house for 20 minutes.

Rahul’s query

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Tuesday said the party was “curious” to know whether the meeting between yoga guru Ramdev’s aide Ved Pratap Vaidik and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed was facilitated by the Indian embassy in Pakistan.

“The question is whether the Indian embassy in Pakistan facilitated this event…whether they helped this gentleman (Vaidik) in anyway,” Rahul Gandhi said, speaking to reporters here.

He also described Vaidik as a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) man, which he said was a “known fact”.

The 69-year-old Vaidik’s meeting with Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan has sparked off a major row with the Congress seeking to pin down the Narendra Modi government by asking if he was sent as an emissary even as the ruling BJP has distanced itself from the meeting, asserting Saeed was a “terrorist”.

Hafiz Saeed was the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, in which one Pakistani terrorist, Ajmal Amir Kasab, was caught alive. He was tried and executed later.

(IANS)