The Hindu : It is alarming, says Advani

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 26, 2003

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It is alarming, says Advani

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 25. Describing the bomb blasts in Mumbai today as "extremely alarming", the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, said that investigations were on to establish who were behind them.

Mr. Advani said that since November-December last year, Mumbai had been witness to a number of such blasts. "Earlier, blasts were on buses and trains and almost in all cases, the banned organisation, Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), was found acting in conjunction with the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Whether today's blasts are also the handiwork of the same organisations would depend upon investigations which are going on," he told reporters after emerging from a meeting at the Prime Minister's residence.

He said the security agencies would know within a short time who was behind the explosions. Mr. Advani, who is scheduled to visit Aurangabad tomorrow, may also visit the blast sites.

Commenting on the incidents, the Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, said here that the fundamentals of the economy were strong and the stock market dip was only a "small blip."

The economy was resilient enough to overcome it.

The Defence Minister, George Fernandes, said he suspected that the blasts were the handiwork of terrorists.

"My impression is some terrorist group must have masterminded the blasts," Mr. Fernandes, said in Nagpur, after attending a function at Amravati.

The Union Minister of State for Home, Swami Chinmayanand, speaking to reporters at Indore before leaving for Mumbai, said the blasts prima facie appeared to be the handiwork of terrorist outfits.

Asked if there had been a failure on the part of Central intelligence agencies, he said it was not proper to blame any Central or State agency at the moment as militancy could not be tackled by any one agency.

Speaking in Kolkata at a meeting organised on the occasion of `Tripura Day', the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, said the Mumbai blasts was a terrorist act and that Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, was active in India.

`Dangerous conspiracy'

Speaking in Ahmedabad, the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, described the blasts as "shocking" and said there was a "dangerous conspiracy to weaken the nation".

He said semi-terrorism activities such as printing of fake currency notes, narcotics trade and spurious drugs were being carried out to shatter the economy and social bonding.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad demanded that the Centre unravel the conspiracy behind today's blasts and punish the culprits by "hanging them in public".

The VHP Delhi unit president, Om Prakash Singhal, said

"History will not forgive the Government this time if it failed to come out of its stupor and launch stern action to stamp out the scourge of terrorism from the country. Mere lip service will not suffice this time."

The Shiv Sena executive president, Uddhav Thackeray, demanded the resignation of the coalition Government in Maharashtra for its "failure to protect the people in the State." — PTI, UNI

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