Meeting between Hafiz Saeed, Indian journalist causes uproar
Although the Indian government distanced itself from the meeting, the Congress party sought an explanation from the treasury benches over the reported meeting, leading to two adjournments during question hour.
According to reports, Ved Pratap Vaidik, a freelance journalist who is also a close aide of Yoga guru Ramdev, met Saeed in Lahore on July 2 during a visit to Pakistan along other journalists and politicians invited by a peace research institute.
हाफिज ने कहा, पाकिस्तान मोदी का स्वागत करेगा: वेद प्रताप वैदिक http://t.co/xa3t2vmD6H pic.twitter.com/HLh363Vlpo
— Ved Pratap Vaidik (@DrVaidik) July 14, 2014
Though the government clarified that it had nothing to do with the meeting, Congress members sought a detailed statement on the purpose and motive behind the meeting with Saeed, accused by India as the mastermind of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Members of the opposition called for the journalist to be arrested and said it was a matter of national interest.
During Monday’s session at the Lok Sabha, General Secretary of Congress Digvijaya Singh asked leader of the house and finance minister Arun Jaitley if the meeting had the government's sanction.
Jaitley responded saying that for India, Hafiz is a terrorist and that the government had nothing to do with "directly, indirectly or even remotely" with any journalist meeting Saeed, the Hindustan Times reported.
Meanwhile, the journalist, Vaidik, said he met Saeed as a journalist for an hour on July 2 in Lahore, during which the JuD chief told him that Narendra was “dangerous and now he has become the prime minister.”
Correction: An earlier version of the article incorrectly noted that the Mumbai attacks took place in 2006. The error is regretted.
COMMENTS (45)
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@VINOD: Thanks God, someone from New Delhi responded with explanation or we commentators were going around in circles.
@Dar:
Why is that only Pakistanis like you seem to have knowledge that no one else in the world has?!
Simple. This exercise was carried out to find as to how the rightists and terror groups will react if Mr Modi visits Pakistan. It was also an attempt to persuade these groups to welcome the move of Modi's visit or at least do not create a hungama. There is a likelihood that this move was also to help Mr Nawas Sharif to make the meeting success.
God bless Hafiz Saeed. He is completely innocent of Mumbai false flag operation, just as Afzal Guru was innocent. I am a Kashmiri living in Indian occupied Kashmir. God bless all loyal Kashmiris to this great nation, and may God bless all our Pakistani friends and allies. Curse on all enemies of the Kashmiri people. Freedom is coming.
@LuvDat: Was just egging the hindutva warriors on a bit, actually. I'm sick of the blind obsequiousness and sycophancy dripping from some of the comments. Its nauseating!
But honestly, my gut feel is our dear leader has the clayiest feet we've ever seen.
Hafiz Saeed was extremely nervous. He was curious to know, if PM Modi (OBAMA of India) has any intention to copy OBAMA's secret action of Abetabad ...... Don't forget Mr. Saeed what Modi said "Americans didn't leak the plan until Osama was killed"
The men who signed U.S. Constitution are called Fore Father. Not all countries have that history. Of course famous Biblical societies were led by known & established Patriarchs. We in India had whole bunch of Patriarchs from all invading nations & and so we are what we are today, in reality, because of them. I agree, last Baapu, but not the least was Mahatma Gandhi. But aren't we importing too many American Terminologies, or looking for similarities in totally different cultures or are we really impressed by them?
@Gp65: I have immense respect for your knowledge and reasoning, however your blind support and commitment to every act and doing of BJP... RSS baffles me. Sitting in a free and enlightened surrounding, far away from India must be providing you a much detached over all view. You are immensely lucky to have easy reach to various international views, historical knowledge bank and an alive liberated world.You do have the opportunity to clearly see the right path of progress of India and how should we avoid the minefields that can destroy this unique multi cultural and multi religious society created by our forefathers with their sweat and blood.Stand for the right and condemn the wrong and be free in your thinking above cast, creed, race, region, religion or party and politics.This is not a criticism it is a true advice with all sincerity and humility. Hope this catches your eye.
Vaidik is a member of Vivekananda Information Foundation (VIF). VIF was founded by RSS members and Modi recruited 3 members for VIF - National security advisor, Principal Secr, Additional principal Secr
Ramdev is also a known associate of VIF.
This is the main reason Opposition is asking what is Vaidik up to? He is not a simple Jurno ....he must be part of some backdoor channel talks... This is a valid question to ask since VIF member is involved.
@Manoj Dvivedi: You sound like one of those rare logically sound reader, but is it possible that the main target man with the stature of Modi can request an exemption from HS and get "permission granted"? You sounded reasonable until that point. Plus I still don't believe HS has him on the platter and he is walking around & meeting people freely. Why? Men like HS don't work like Mafia man or famous Kings of Underground world. I do commend your assessment of Modi though, excellent!
Vaidik is a member of Vivekanda Information Foundation(VIF), the same one from which Modi has recruited his National Security Adviser, Principal Sec and Additional principal sectary ! Also Ramdev was a known associate of VIF. VIF was founded by known RSS ppl.
This is the main reason Opposition members are not seeing Vaidik as just a jurno but as a backchannel envoy from BJP/RSS and are demanding details.
This is a fair question to ask...since VIF members are involved!
This is my first read on your journal but some comments here are truly off, and deserve one of my own.
Mr. Vaidik is not known for being a journalist as much as what one may call a wheeler dealer, a backroom boy, an n-track diplomat, a think-tank'er' etc. And yet some here who are clearly of Indian extraction, if not nationality, see nothing wrong in this meeting on the basis of journalistic expression and freedom. Seriously? Here's what he said in an interview excerpted on NDTV yesterday - "Mujahidin-e-Awwal (Number One among Warriors) ki iccha hai, unhone mujhse kaha hai, ki ek bar main Srinagar ana chahta hoon. If I were India's PM, I'd request him to leave his passport and visa at home and come to Srinagar (without documents). I'll tell Narendra Modi to do the same."
Please try and justify that, dear commentators.
My justification is far more prosaic and less exalted - this Mr. Vaidik is Mr. Modi's emissary, sent with the express purpose of requesting Hafiz Saeed to spare Mr. Modi during his next jihad on India. Mr. Modi is an incurable paranoid known for not trusting any established channels for his work and also suffers the delusion that he can do nothing wrong. All the Jaitleys, Iranis and Jawdekars of the world who claim to be in his inner circle don't realize he has no circles, inner or outer, and the only dialogue he ever has is with himself. However, it is reassuring to think that our man with his finger on the nuclear button was actually only ever worried about his own skin. Nothing works like self-preservation, I say.
The Congress is acting stupid here. Remember National Security Advisor of India is Ex-Sleuth Ajit Kumar Doval. He will get to Hafiz Saeed, Dawood Abrahim and his likes in no time. He is the best intelligence officer of his time and could be dangerous as well. I suggest all indians to ignore this and be ready for more such news as A K Doval is NSA. It would be better to discuss such things post facto after a few years rather than being speculative.
@Asif: what indian muslims doing in india after partition? Zia-ul-haq also became general and head of state for fighting in operation black day.
@ goggi (lahore): @ False Flag: Spot on guys..... Indian people need to get out of their silly 'Media' made shells. They have got these so-called proves to boast around all the time - but alas, noooooo authnicity whatsoever.
@IndianDude Twisted logic. Typically Indian.
What happened to the Indian Free Press? Or it's just a daily routine over there to sell more papers? May be the second guess.
Journalists often have to meet terrorists and criminal and fanatics to get story. He probably spoke to many pakistanis, they are no different than maulvi hafeez saeed of charity organization like JuD. Why single him out for talking to one pakistani named maulvi hafeez saeed?
He is planning to write a book and needed some recognition of his name and some sensationalizing.
Full marks to the journalist ......... a good journalist always tries to get the truth by himself and not believe what others, especially governments say.
@BlackJack: "...tweeting about Hafiz Saeed and Narendra Modi in the same tweet..." Thank you very much for focusing attention on this aspect of the drama. Now, that shows what some knowledgeable Indians think of Modi. Notwithstanding, the Indian Supreme Court "clearance" of Narendra (clever politicians never leave any evidence), they do associate him with murder like they associate Saeed with the Mumbai massacre.
Well, well, well. Comments show India raw nerves have been touched. Take it easy guys. It is just a journalist doing his duty.
@antanu: Did the sky fall when Aakar Patel met an ISI official, whom he would not name, probably because it was a secret meeting? Aakar Patel mentioned about his meeting with ISI official in his recent article in ET.
I do not support any of these Zia era lashkars....
But Mumbai was a false flag op.
Who knows who carried it out, RAW, CIA, Mossad plus RAW, someone else?
Unfortunately its probably not within the capacity of the Indian media to get to the bottom of the event...
@Hammad Mian: Journalist or a middle man of some agency. I never heard this name before. What news channel does he work? So what was agreed upon and why Pakistan government let his to meet someone who has already played with Pakistan's policy process?
@antanu: Is that why you post your comments with assumed name?
Has anyone heard Kasab speaking in his crude Punjabi?
If not, than we should make clear to ourselves, that Belief and Faith are the professionalized and institutionalized abuse of reason!
@antanu. For your kind information, the sky has already fallen over his guy heavily in both parliament and media or else this won't be in news. Update yourself lil better next time.
@Asif: Is not Jinnah, who called for direct action day and caused thousands death, respected as Father of nation in Pakistan?
@ObserverUSA: Vaidak probably wants to gauge whether Saeed was actually involved in the Bombay massacre. Is he a human lie detector? I have nothing against him meeting anyone as a journalist, but by tweeting about Hafiz Saeed and Narendra Modi in the same tweet, he has provided legitimacy to Saeed and unnecessarily dragged the Government into controversy.
You all dnt under stand the nature of uproar. Bjp is targeted as being ultra nationalist and pro right wingers. They attack congress for being soft and befriending enemy country enemies to appease minority. So the opposition and media fired at the ruling govt for its hypocrisy and doing what even the congress doesn't do and keeping quiet and not condemning over the meeting because this guy is aid of ram Dev yoga baba who supports bjp. For opposition and media its..what's a right winger who's not even a proper journalist didn't even video record his meetng for india and had informal conversation, who's always spoken of nationalism and right wing ideology doing preaching peace to this guy? Specially to a person who is banned and sanctioned by uk,USA,UN,European Union, india and even pakistan. They ask Why is he there to speak with one of the most wanted person in world.
@asif court wants proof not fabricated claims... There's no proof against modi Supreme Court has cleared all cases... Can that be said same for this guy who's banned by most of the world for what he did?
@Asif: Kudos to you and Pakistani logic in general!! If Modi has done something in India it is up to Indians and Indian courts to deal with.But your "hero" Hafiz Saeed is wanted for murder of innocents in India,USA..He carries a bounty of 10m$ for his"heroics".I think you must be his student to defend him.Good Job!!
It is perfectly okay for a journalist to meet anyone. No one in India would have a problem with that. The problem arose because Digvijaya Singh from Comgress falsely implied that this meeting was part of some track 2 iniiative sponsored by NDA government. That was naturally unacceptable. But once Arun Jaitley the defense minister has clarified that the journalist met Hafiz in his individual capacity and not as an envoy of the overnment, there is in fact no controversy whatsoever. The journalist has confirmed the NDA overnment's version that he is there in his personal capacity
@ObserverUSA- the journalist can meet whoever he wants. No one in India has a shred of doubt that Saeed was the master mind for 26/11 based on statements on oath by Kasab in India and David headley im USA as well as interrogation of an Indian terrorist who was living in Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport and ratriated to India. So regardless of what the journalists says, no one is open to changing their mind given the overwhelming evidence available about Saeed's culpability.
Ved Pratap Vaidik is a very courageous man. Only being truthful completely can bring courage in you.
Vaidak probably wants to gauge whether Saeed was actually involved in the Bombay massacre. Why should he be condemned for trying to find out the truth?
Indian media is loosing relevance with each passing day. This is purely a media created controversy for ratings. Lately Modi has starved India media of prime time bites. Most sensible Indians find nothing wrong in Dr Vaidik meeting Hafiz Saeed. I am one who supports the meeting. I am all against Hafiz Saeed as far as his anti India Jihad is concerned, However, I find nothing wrong in talking even to an adversary.
Journalists have to meet all and sundry to unearth the truth. Denounce denunciation of investigative journalism.
Had the journalist was named as KHAN, MOHAMMAD, ALI.....the sky would have fallen.
The attacks happened in November 2008 and not 2006. What happened to proof reading?
Same thing happened with veteran Indian politician when he praised Jinnah-This is India.
Oh Come on guys! He is a Journalist and that is his job to meet anyone.
I see no hope for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. India is awfully defensive and insecure about the situation. I thought this guy talked a lot of sense when he was in Pakistan. You can pull up his You Tube videos which'll tell you he's a man of peace.
Interestingly, according to Indian logic Hafiz Saeed, the so-called killer of 160 Indians is a "terrorist", but the killer of 2000 Indian Muslims is their Prime Minister.