National

Home Ministry seeks report

NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry is in touch with the Uttar Pradesh government and top authorities of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the wake of the pre-dawn terrorist attack on the CRPF Group Centre at Rampur on Tuesday .The attack, in which eight persons including seven CRPF personnel were killed, triggered a nation-wide alert by the CRPF at its bases and group centres , Inspector-General (Operations), CRPF, A.P. Maheshwari said .

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said the Ministry sought a detailed report about the incident. In a statement here, Mr. Patil said the authorities were asked to take immediate measures to identify the culprits and bring them to book. He conveyed his sympathies to the kin of those killed and wished the injured speedy recovery.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said the incident should make the Centre and the U.P. government gear up their intelligence and security systems. “No effort should be spared to uncover the terrorist networks operating in the country,” the Polit Bureau said in a statement.

“It is shocking that such an attack could take place on a Central paramilitary force institution in the heart of the country. It is also worrying that the attack has taken place despite prior intelligence alert of the possibility of such a terrorist strike in the area,” the statement said.

The sources said a standard security drill was followed by all Central paramilitary forces. The CRPF was picked by the terrorist group as it was fighting insurgency, deployed on internal security and anti-militancy operations in Jammu and Kashmir and was involved in anti-naxalite operations in several States.

Sources said the modus operandi pointed to the involvement of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, indicating that such modules had a presence in the belt of western U.P.

The attack on the CRPF group centre came a month after simultaneous bomb blasts in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad in which 13 people were killed.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu