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Secular foundation of nation strong: Home Ministry

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 24. The Union Home Ministry has claimed credit for not "allowing the communal disturbances to spread to States beyond Gujarat" where riots and violence have refused to die down even after about two months.

"A positive development has been that the communal disturbances were not allowed to spread to other States and Union Territories due to the initiatives taken by the Central and State Governments and alertness of law-enforcing agencies,'' the Home Ministry said in its annual report for 2001-2002.

It attributed the credit of limiting violence to Gujarat only to a "rare sense of maturity and aversion to violence shown by the people of all communities throughout the country.''

While admitting that the aftermath of disturbances like the one in Gujarat has "shaken occasionally'' the secular foundation of the country, the Ministry said it was too strong to be shattered by "such spastic instances of violence.''

Describing the communal flare-up in Gujarat as a "highly disturbing development'', the Ministry said the situation was under control. More than 800 persons had been killed in the state, where peace and normality was yet to be restored.

The report said that large-scale violence in Gujarat was a fall out of the carnage at Godhra, in which 58 persons were burnt to death. However, the report does not make any reference to the Godhra carnage being "planned'' at the behest of the Pakistan's ISI, as had been claimed by the BJP and the Government.

On the ISI's activities, the report noted that the Pakistani intelligence agency received a setback in its efforts to revive militancy in Punjab, but it had not given up attempts to foment trouble in India. "There is a concerted design to revive terrorism in Punjab and intensify militancy in Kashmir. They (ISI) have been making efforts to subvert the loyalties of misguided youth and alluring them for arms training to Pakistan and Pak-occupied Kashmir.''

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