The Congress today welcomed the BRICS declaration condemning terrorism and hoped Prime Minister Narendra Modi would now take up the issue of declaring Jaish chief Masood Azhar an international terrorist.
Congress' communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said terrorism had no place either in India or on the world stage and challenge of terrorism was something that BRICS nations, as also all other countries, must fight unitedly.
Expressing happiness that BRICS nations condemned acts of terror outfits such as Taliban, ISIS, Al-Qaida, Haqqani Network, Lashker-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizb ut-Tahrir, TTP and others, he said, "It is a welcome start and I think it needs to be taken forward."
"We sincerely hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi now will take up the issue of declaration of Maulana Masood Azhar as an international terrorist since Jaish-e-Mohammed to whom he is affiliated, has now been declared by BRICS nations as a terrorist organisation," he said.
Surjewala said China did not have moral or legal rights now to stand in the way or to prevent the United Nations from declaring him as an 'international terrorist'.
On Modi's statement in BRICS that India was in 'mission- mode' to eradicate poverty and ensure health, sanitation, gender equality, the Congress leader said he needed to go from rhetoric to reality and recalled the death of children in Farukhabad, Gorakhpur and Ranchi among other cities.
"Is this the health security that the prime minister speaks about? When 1,260 people die in the country, majority in BJP-ruled states, due to swine-flu, is this the health security that the prime minister speaks about?
"There is difference between the reality and rhetoric of the prime minister. It is time for him to walk the talk," he said.
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