Parliament witnesses anger over Ramdev aide meeting Hafiz Saeed
The journalist in question is Ved Pratap Vaidik, who is a freelancer and a columnist and his meeting with Saeed went public with a social media photograph of the same. He met the Jamaat-ud-Dawa head responsible for the Mumbai attack of 2008 in Lahore on July 2, said reports.
In Parliament, Congress members like Anand Sharma fumed and said Vaidik met the most wanted terrorist of the world and there was no action. He should be arrested, Sharma said.
The government defended itself on the matter.
"The government has nothing to do with any journalist's activity in his individual capacity," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in the Rajya Sabha, emphasising that it is not directly or indirectly connected to the meeting.
While Congress is up in arms and said Vaidik is close to the BJP camp, Baba Ramdev said Vaidik met the dreaded terrorist in his capacity as a journalist.
Vaidik himself also defended his meeting and said he met Saeed as a journalist and for a journalist no one is untouchable.
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh tweeted, Ved Pratap Vedik meets Hafiz Sayeed . Any reaction on Social Media ? Did he go as an Envoy of NDA Govt or as a personal Envoy of PM ?
According to his Wikipedia profile, Ved Pratap Vaidik is a scholar, political analyst and free lancer columnist of India. It says he had been with Press Trust of India as the founder-editor of its Hindi news agency “Bhasha”. Before that he was the Editor (views) in Nav Bharat Times. At present, he is the Chairman of Bhartiya Bhasha Sammelan.
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