Prime Minister must take heed of any such case and ask the bureaucrats not to dismiss hands of terrorists in creating panic.
A low intensity blast in Pune city left four persons injured on Thursday.
The blast was triggered by an IED planted in a bike in front of Faraskhana police station.
The injured include one police constable.
Quite to the surprise, the Narendra Modi-led central government dismissed the incidence as terror act quite soon after the blast took place. “It was a minor blast. Why do you think it could be a terror act?” Union home secretary Anil Goswami told reporters. He said that said the director general of Maharashtra Police had briefed him about the explosion and the situation there.
Interestngly, the BJP which sits in the opposition in the state, took no time in accusing the state government for the blasts. Leader of opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Eknath Khadse condemned the blast and said it reflected the state government’s “utter failure on the law and order front”.
He demanded that the culprits be nabbed at the earliest. The BJP leader also took potshots at Home Minister R R Patil, saying he had no control over the police machinery.
The Pune blast had its echo in Rajya Sabha too with Shiv Sena suggesting that the Congress-NCP government in the state is not acting enough on terror issue.
Alleging that the “sleeper cells of Indian Mujahideen are more active in Pune” and that they operate in entire Mumbai from there, Sena member Sanjay Raut said there are certain areas in which even the police dare not enter.
It should be noted that Pune was rocked by four coordinated low-intensity explosions on 1 August, 2012 which had left one person injured. The city had come on the terrorists’ radar for the first time when 17 people were killed and around 60 injured in a powerful blast at German Bakery, one of Pune’s favourite eateries, on 13 February, 2010.
Home-grown terror outfit Indian Mujahideen was blamed for both the attacks.
Maharashtra government, however, has not rule out the possibility of terror act and state home minister R R Patil, who visited the blast site Thursday evening, said Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) will handle the probe.
Ten teams of the ATS have been created for the same and the state government has submitted a report to the union home ministry regarding the blasts.
Reports are that the CCTV footage of the area has been recovered by the ATS and that speculations over terrorists trying to target famous Dagdusheth Halwai Ganesh Temple in the crowded Budhwar Peth area in the city centre are high.
The incident happened close to the temple, which attracts a large number of devotees, especially during the annual Ganesh festival. It was target of an abortive bomb attack in 2010 too.
The central government needs to keep its eyes and ears open given the fact that the terrorist wings are pretty much anti-BJP and anti-Modi. There is already a case of sabotage on the Chhapra-Dibrugarh railway line due to which Rajdhani Express derailed near Chhapra two weeks ago killing 13 people.
Prime Minister must take heed of any such case and ask the bureaucrats not to dismiss hands of terrorists in creating panic. The intelligence agencies must be taken into confidence and efforts must be made towards averting such terror incidence – low intensity or not.
