Gujarat limps back to normalcy
BANGALORE, AHMEDABAD BLASTS: INDIA ON THE DEFENSIVE
An uneasy calm prevailed in Gujarat today as it crawled back to normalcy amid heavy rumour-mongering.
On the day Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, accompanied by UPA President Sonia Gandhi and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, visited the state, Gujarat police continued to recover bombs. Rumours of bomb blasts across the state did not help the security agencies.
A day after serial blasts in the city claimed 46 lives, Ahmedabad police yesterday nabbed Abdul Haleem from the city’s Dani Limda area.
Haleem, suspected to have links with the Islamic outfit, Ahle Hadeez, was today produced before a local court, which sent him to police custody till August 10. Gujarat police were on the look out for Haleem, who is from Uttar Pradesh and was settled in Ahmedabad since 1980, in connection with the 2002 communal riots.
Meanwhile, Surat police today seized a live bomb. Senior police officials say the department has some leads into the car bombs that went off at a civil hospital in Ahmedabad as well as in an abandoned car in Surat.
As life started coming back to the normal, several industrial estates in the state saw skeletal presence of workers. “Around 40 per cent shops remained closed in Ahmedabad,” said Sunil Gandhi, chairman of the Gujarat Garment Manufacturing Association. Other industrial estates like Vatva and Naroda also witnessed less activity.
Praising the people of the state for their resilience, Singh announced an ex gratia of Rs 3.50 lakh for the next of the kin of those killed in the blasts. The Centre had earlier announced an ex-gratia of Rs 1 lakh. He also announced Rs 50,000 for the injured.
“I have come to express solidarity with the people of Gujarat in their hour of crisis. I commend the people of Gujarat for the resilience they have shown. These terrorist acts are aimed at destroying our social fabric, undermining communal harmony and demoralising our people. As the people of Gujarat have shown so admirably, these efforts will not succeed. We will rise to the challenge and I am confident we will be able to defeat these forces,” he said.
Earlier, the Gujarat government had announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh for the kin of those killed in the blasts.