Govt not taking action against blasts suspect: Sena

New Delhi, July 26: Asking Home Minister Shivraj Patil to reveal the names of the people arrested in connection with the Mumbai blasts, Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi today said the government was not taking tough action against the culprits because they belong to a particular religion.

Initiating a short duration discussion in the Rajya Sabha on Mumbai blasts, Mr Joshi said even after the Maharashtra Government was warned well in advance, the state machinery took no action to prevent the terrorist attacks.

He wanted to know what action the UPA government was taking to get underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, responsible for 1993 blasts, extradited from Pakistan.

The former Lok Sabha Speaker and former Maharashtra Chief Minister said it was due to the appeasement policy of the Centre and the state government in regard to a particular religion that terrorism was growing.

''Instead of making stronger laws to punish terrorists, this government had repealed POTA,'' Mr Joshi said.

The government should be tough with the terrorists to the extent of killing them. He said it should not bother too much about the Human Rights Commission. ''What about the human rights of the innocent people killed by terrorists,'' he asked.

The Shiv Sena leader claimed while Pakistan had a role in the blasts, locals were also responsible. Certain areas in Maharashtra and within Mumbai city were known as ''mini Pakistan'' and the government finds itself helpless about them. It was only an appeasement policy and the politics of vote banks, he said amid protests from the members of the Samajwadi Party.

He said there were also reports that the Mumbai blasts were engineered to take the revenge for the Gujarat riots. This is borne out by the fact that the explosions took place in the Western Railway which carries a lot of Gujaratis.

BJP senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi claimed that terrorism was being perpetrated as an ideology with a greater design by Pakistan to finish the Hindu ethos in India and said terrorists have also infiltrated in the North East.

UNI

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