National

Arrest Raj under NSA, say Ministers

NEW DELHI: The anti-north Indian campaign by MNS chief Raj Thackeray came under severe attack at a Union Cabinet meeting on Thursday, with strong demands made for his arrest under National Security Act (NSA) as also a judicial inquiry into the killing of two youths from Bihar and U.P. in Maharashtra.

With his ministerial colleagues, especially from Bihar, venting their anger, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who chaired the meeting, revealed he had written a “strongly worded” letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and asked Home Minister Shivraj Patil to convey the collective strong sentiments of the Union Cabinet to the State government, sources said.

With Railway Minister Lalu Prasad not present at the meeting, Fertilizer Minister Ram Vilas Paswan led the charge against Mr. Thackeray’s campaign and wondered what the Centre was doing when national unity and integrity were being challenged.

He felt Mr. Thackeray was being made a hero by the arrest-and-release “drama” of the State government and demanded that he be booked under NSA.

He was supported by RJD’s P. C. Gupta and Raghuvans Prasad and Congress’ ministers P. Chidambaram, H.R. Bhardwaj, Kapil Sibal and S. Jaipal Reddy.

The Prime Minister is believed to have said that he shared the concerns of the allies and wrote a strong letter to Deshmukh on Monday after a delegation of leaders from Bihar led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had met him. What more could he do, he is believed to have asked.

The Ministers with a legal background, Mr. Chidambaram, Mr. Bhardwaj and Mr. Sibal, were understood to have favoured a judicial inquiry into the killing of the Bihari youth in a bus by Mumbai police on the ground that a civilian probe would not suffice. – PTI

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