In a departure from his party's position, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor told NDTV that by executing terrorists "we are reducing ourselves to the level of those people". Speaking not specifically on the Yakub Memon case, but on the "larger principle of what we stand for as a society", he asked 1993 blasts victim Kirti Ajmera , "Is the state the same as the kind of terrorists who have done him this harm? Does he want the government acting in his name to behave in the same way as a terrorist or a killer?"