RSS must be declared 'terrorist' organisation: Azam Khan

UP minister Azam Khan today stoked a fresh controversy by demanding that RSS be declared a "terrorist" organisation, accusing it of planning riots and having orchestrated them, drawing a sharp reaction from BJP. "They have orchestrated many riots and many others have been planned. RSS should be declared a terrorist organisation," Khan said here. Hitting back at Khan, BJP secretary Shrikant Sharma said when Prime Ministers like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi could not harm RSS, then people like him were of little worth. "It's just an effort to create communal tension, appease a section of people and cover up the failures of the Uttar Pradesh government." he said. He said Khan, Samajwadi Party and Congress suffered from "RSS-phobia" and their rants against it have made no difference to the "nationalist" organisation. RSS works to integrate country and attach people to their culture, Sharma claimed, adding that Khan and his party represented "fissiparous" forces which believed in the politics of appeasement. On the Ram Mandir issue, Khan said, "We want to assure BJP and RSS that if Babri Masjid is built at the same place (in Ayodhya) all the Muslims of India will leave no stone unturned for the BJP to come back to power". BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj ruled out construction of a masjid at the disputed site. "No power in the world can build a masjid there. The entire world may raise chants of Babri, Babri. A temple was there, temple is there and a temple will be there always," he told reporters. Khan had earlier sparked a row by accusing Jama Masjid's Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari of being hand-in-glove with Hindu outfits which were "silent" on his son's marriage to a Hindu though they were vociferously raising the issue of "love jihad". The UP minister had described Bukhari as an RSS agent, a charge dismissed by Bukhari.