The Home Minister however lambasted the BJP for portraying it as optimal incompetence of his ministry even when their Home Minister was unaware of three terrorists being taken to Kandahar in 1999.
Chidambaram contended that figuring of Khan Wazhul Kamar’s (accused in 2003 Mulund blast) name in the list of 50 most wanted fugitives was not such a “monumental mistake of calamitous consequence” as made out to be and he was prepared to face political exchanges on the issue. The BJP retorted saying the “monumental error” will have serious bearing on the dialogues with Pakistan.
“It now transpires that the Mumbai Police arrested Khan Wazhul Kamar on May 21, 2010. However, this information of arrest and the request for consequent deletion of red notice was not sent by the Mumbai Police to the CBI,” Chidambaram said.
There were further enquiries by CBI with Mumbai police on Khan on January 27 this year to which Mumbai Police replied on Tuesday requesting cancellation of the red notice as Khan was no longer required by it on account of his arrest in May 2010, he said.
Conceding that the Mumbai Police had conveyed to the IB in January 2011 of Khan’s arrest, Chidambaram said, “This information, unfortunately, was not reflected in the list of fugitives maintained by the authorities and was overlooked while the list was prepared in March 2011.” When asked about BJP’s charge that the monumental error reflected the optimum incompetence of his ministry, Chidambaram retaliated by recalling a statement of L K Advani as Home Minister that he did not know that three terrorists in custody were taken out of jail in December 1999 and taken to Kandahar by the then Foreign Minister.