Government sympathises with Saifullah's father, says Rajnath Singh

NEW DELHI: Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday praised the father of terror suspect Saifullah, killed by UP ATS in an encounter on Wednesday, for disowning his son over his "anti-national" activities.
In a statement made in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour, Singh however refrained from linking Saifullah or the six suspects arrested in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh in connection with the Bhopal-Ujjain train blast, to the Islamic State (IS) or its ideology.
Telling MPs that he sympathised with the angst of Saifullah's father Mohammad Sartaj, he said "the government is proud of him" for his remarkable act of placing the nation above his son.
Singh recalled the statement of Sartaj that "I don't want to see or accept even the dead body of my son..One who could not be true to his nation, cannot be my son."
"I am sure that the entire House will join me in sympathising with the father. We should all be proud of him," he told the MPs.
In his statement, Singh detailed the entire sequence of events on March 7, starting with the blast in a general compartment of Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train at Shajapur. Stating that MP DGP and other senior police officials immediately rushed to the site of the blast, Singh said the initial inspection of the scene of crime indicated that the accused had used an IED prepared by using locally available explosives for the blast.
He informed the House that NIA would be probing the train blast case.
Though Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan had categorically identified Islamic State as the outfit which the suspects owed allegiance to, Singh refrained naming IS. Sources said the home minister is of the view that unless the probe throws up evidence clearly pointing to the role of IS, it would be premature to take any names.
Complimenting the Central intelligence agencies and the police of Madhya Pradesh and UP for excellent coordination, Singh said it was due to prompt action by the police of both the states that a possible threat to national security was averted.
Six suspects have been arrested so far and one killed in the case. Three persons were arrested in Madhya Pradesh and one each from Kanpur, Etawah and Auraiya in UP. The latter two, he said, were picked up for allegedly supplying weapons to the module.
On Saifullah encounter, Singh told the MPs that UP police had made "vigorous attempts to arrest the suspect". However, after 12 hours of efforts and giving him multiple opportunities to surrender, the ATS cops stormed his hideout and killed him in the encounter that ensued.
The police, he said, had recovered 8 pistols, 630 live cartridges, Rs 1.5 lakh in cash, 45 gms gold, 3 mobile phones, 4 SIM cards, 2 wireless sets and some foreign currency from Saifullah's room.