Kin of Varanasi blasts victims mourn Mumbai serial blasts

Varanasi, July 18 (UNI) Four months ago they lost their loved ones in the twin blasts at this religious city.

This evening at the Prayag Ghat, families of the victims of March 7 Varanasi blasts joined the nation in mourning those dead in the 7/11 Mumbai serial blasts, with a demand to take decisive action against terrorist camps in Pakistan.

''The time has come to go on the offensive against Pakistan by dismantling the terrorist camps across the LoC.

''Be it LeT's camp in Muridake or any other training camp of terrorist outfits, hell bent at destroying India...all of them need to be dismantled,'' said Vidya Bhushan Mishra and Shiv Shankar Mishra, grandfather and father of two-yr-old Shivangi, who was killed in the March 7 blast at Sankatmochan temple.

They were joined in their call for action against terror outfits, by other blast hit families of Varanasi, including Devidas Bijlani, who lost his photographer son Harish in the same temple blast, besides Amit Bhalotia, whose father Manohar Bhalotia was killed in the terror strike.

The families while recounting the horror of the tragedy observed silence in the memory of Mumbai blast victims and later chanted 'Hanuman Chalisa' before offering 'diyas' at a Hanuman temple and prayed for courage to the country's leadership, to uproot the menance of terrorism.

''Lord Hanuman could not save our loved ones from terrorists at his 16th century temple, but we pray he brings common sense and courage to country's leadership in eliminating terror,'' said Amit Bhalotia.

Amid the rituals and fervant prayer, booking clerk at Manduadih railway station Suhsil Upadhyaya, who lost his young son Ritesh in the Sankatmochan blast, consoled himself by recounting that his son still lived in a three year old girl who now saw the world from his eyes.

The railway employee, though, could not hide his tears and questioned when will the country's leadership take decisive action against the terrorists. ''Is it only after another Pakistan is created from our own territory.'' As many as 18 people were killed and over 100 wounded in the twin blasts that rocked the Sankatmochan temple and Varanasi railway station within a span of 15 minutes on March 7.

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