SIMI arrests expose UPA's inability to tackle terrorism: BJP

NEW DELHI: BJP has welcomed the arrests of SIMI members involved in the Ahmedabad and Surat bomb plots and said the role of the banned organization exposed UPA's inability to tackle terror as at least three senior coalition leaders had only last week welcomed the decision of a tribunal to lift the ban on the outfit.

Though the ban had been promptly restored by the Supreme Court, BJP claimed that the action of RJD leader Lalu Prasad, LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan and Congress's newest ally, SP boss Mulayam Singh Yadav, in welcoming the "relief" to SIMI had exposed their desperate votebank compulsions. "Today is a day of shame for UPA," said party general secretary Arun Jaitley.

Speaking to the media after the Gujarat police announced the arrests, Jaitley complimented the Gujarat
police for the swift investigation and pointing to the depth and spread of the SIMI network, asked whether the extremist organisation's backers in the UPA would now clarify their positions.

"At least three UPA members support SIMI while a fourth, the PDP, talks of marching to Muzzaffarabad in PoK," Jaitley said.

The party clearly views the breakthrough in the Ahmedabad and Surat investigations as an important boost to its claims of being tough on terrorism and Jaitley immediately demanded that the Centre allow Gujarat and Rajasthan to have their versions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, which are currently awaiting presidential sanction.

Jaitley said that those arrested in terror cases would be put to speedier trial under MCOCA-like laws in the absence of which the accused were often able to get bail. The essential provisions of special laws like admissibility of wire taps and confessions before a magistrate, tough bail conditions and quicker trials were important to waging the war on terror. BJP-ruled states are not being allowed to have recourse to such laws despite they being available to Congress-administered states.

Jaitley said that the Centre, in particular home minister Shivraj Patil, had often observed that law and order was a state subject. But at the same time, the Manmohan Singh government has deliberately prevented Gujarat and Rajasthan from having special laws in order to propiate its Muslim support base.

Source : Times Of India