PM, Sonia listen to allies' criticism on terror

ATTACK ON MUMBAI: THE AFTERMATH

Before the political leaders had signed off the all-party meeting on terrorism on Sunday night with a consensus on creating a new federal agency to deal with issues like terrorism, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi had to listen to some the harshest criticism of the government’s handling of terrorism from some of their closest allies.

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, who represents the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), was the first to speak against the government’s poor show on acting tough of terrorism at the all-party meeting called by the prime minister to discuss the threats from terrorists in the wake of last week’s terrorist strike in Mumbai, which claimed over 180 lives and left some 400 injured.

His sole target, however, was the former home minister Shivraj Patil, whom, he blamed for all the “lethargy that had crept in the system in dealing with terrorism”.

“The home minister should have been sent home much earlier,” said Prasad as Gandhi listened to him with rapt attention. “Not only the home minister but entire bureaucracy of the home ministry should be shifted,” he said.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, who heads the Samajwadi Party — the newest allies of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) — said he was disappointed with the UPA government’s poor record on dealing with terrorism. “When we decided to support you, we had better expectations from your government on this front,” he said.

Yadav, whose party is not part of the government, gave a 15-day ultimatum to the Prime Minister for charting a fresh course of action to deal with terrorism or face the SP’s threat to withdraw support to the UPA.

No wonder, Singh, in his concluding remarks gave himself 15 days to finalise the legal steps his government was planning to take on revamping the security set-up in the country, and more importantly creating a central investigating agency.

The nearly five-hour meeting saw the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders — Jaswant Singh and VK Malhotra — pitted against the combined might of All India Majlis-e-Ittahadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi and Ramvilas Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) on the issue of investigation into the Malegoan blasts in Maharashtra.

The BJP leaders alleged that the anti-terror squad (ATS) was being ‘misused’ for establishing the role of Sadhvi Pragyan and Lt Col Purohit in the Malegoan blasts taking their minds off the terrorists’ trail while Owaisi and Paswan said “the BJP was playing vote-bank politics by campaigning against the Islamic terrorism on the basis of the assumed role of the Muslims in Malegoan blasts”.

Although majority of the leaders cautioned the government against souring its ties with Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai strikes, Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference wanted “the terrorist camps in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to be pounded for effective deterrence”.

“You must listen to people like us who have been facing such threats for so long,” Abdullah added.

Sources said while Sonia Gandhi spoke only at the end of the meeting, Shibu Soren of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) slept through the meeting as it continued till midnight. Malhotra, who had been campaigning till a few days back, was the only leader to leave the meeting midway.

Among other leaders, Prakash Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) suggested that New Delhi should go to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) against Pakistan. Karat reminded Singh that after the 9/11 terrorist strikes in US, the UNSC had passed a resolution mandating itself the right to take action against any country that is seen as sponsoring terrorism in a member country of the UN.

Karat said since many among the 22 foreigners killed in the Mumbai strikes belonged to the countries which are members of the Security Council; the move was likely to find favour with the UN.