Blast from the past: India too soft on terror

              

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Keywords: Terror, Face The Nation

As many as 63 people died and over 150 were injured in the eight blasts in Jaipur on Tuesday night.

Eight bombs went off within 15 minutes in a one-kilometre radius. The bombs were packed on bicycles—the terrorist strategy used in the Malegaon blasts of 2006 and blasts in three cities in Uttar Pradesh in 2007.

As the people who have suffered in the blasts tried to get on with their lives politicians started pointing fingers at each other.

The BJP alleged that the UPA Government’s "soft, weak and apathetic" policies had encouraged terrorism. Leader of the Opposition L K Advani wanted the Government to re-enact POTA against terrorists. "After seeing the major blasts in Jaipur, it is high time for the government of India to reintroduce POTA," he said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejected such demands, saying: "what has POTA achieved—there is no dearth of laws in the country to deal with terrorism.”

India has a long list of cities which have suffered terrorist bomb attacks: Mumbai, Delhi, Malegaon, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Ajmer and now Jaipur.

The two attacks in Hyderabad, the blast on Samjhauta Express train, the blast outside a mosque in Malegaon and the attack in Varanasi have not been conclusively solved. Often, the masterminds behind the blasts are never caught.

Does the recurring terrorist attacks and the authorities inability to prevent them prove that India a safe haven for terrorists?

CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose asked Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad and national security expert Ajay Sahni, who is the director of Centre for Conflict Management.

“The security apparatus of the states and Centre has so many deficiencies that they are not capable of bringing terrorists to book or preventing attacks. Nothing has been done for decades to improve the capabilities of the police or the intelligence agencies,” said Sahni.

“A special committee recommended after the Kargil conflict that the government must set up a multi-agency centre to coordinate intelligence from the whole country. More than six years have passed and nothing has progressed. The NDA and then the UPA have been in power in these years. Parties keep blaming each other but they and most state leaderships are at fault,” he said.