BJP seeks security for Advani's rally at Guwahati

New Delhi, Sep 25 (UNI) Confirming that Indian Mujahideen had indeed sent terror threats through e-mail to Leader of the Opposition L K Advani that they would target his Guwahati meeting on October 28, the BJP today asked the Centre to step up protection and investigate the threats.

BJP General Secretary Gopinath Munde told newspersons that Mr Advani had received such threats and it was the responsibility of the Government to provide conducive conditions for all leaders to carry out their political activities against all such threats. "If a Leader of the Opposition faces such threats, imagine the fate of democracy", Mr Munde remarked.

He said Mr Advani had faced similar threats in the past and recalled how his meetings in Tamil Nadu were targeted by terrorists and the Governments were unable to punish the kingpin succumbing to the pressures of vote bank politics.

Mr Munde said that although Mr Advani did have 'Z Plus' security, it was important that the security for the rally too should be stepped up to foil the designs of the terrorists who were targeting democratic institutions.

Asked about the comments of Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi dubbing POTA as a 'failed law', Mr Munde said he had conceded to the need for having a tougher law. ''Let them call it by any name as long as it contained tough terror laws taking into latest changes to bring terrorists to book.

Mr Munde said Maharashtra was the first state to come out with MCOCA, which took taped telephone conversations and photographs as evidences in courts of law. The Congress too had tougher bail provisions under TADA but the party had succumbed to the pressures of Muslim community when it cried fowl.

Asked if it was fair to brand all Muslims as terrorists, he said he never accepted such a proposition. Majority of Muslims were nationalists and patriots but it was also a fact that all those arrested for heinous attacks on innocents were from the same community.

Mr Munde said Mr Advani will be inaugurating a seminar on 'War on Terrorism' on October four in Delhi where a detailed analysis of detailed face of terrorism in India would be made. The meet would also discuss the need for the country responding with a stringent law to combat terror effectively.

The meet organised by Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an NGO involved in providing intellectural inputs and educating the opinion leaders of the country, would be participated by top anti-terror experts including former head of Counter Terrorism Division of RAW B Raman, former BSF Chief Prakash Singh, Gujarat Inspector General Rakesh Astana who would discuss the changing modus perandi of terror operators in the country. A session on the need for an anti-terror law would be participated by former Jammu and Kashmir governor Lt Gen S K Sinha and Justice R S Nayak, Chairperson of Human Rights Commission Karnataka and P Sundari, a senior advocate from Andhra Pradesh.

UNI MCN PK AS1452