BJP accuses Deshmukh govt of ''apathy' towards blast victims

Mumbai, June 6 (UNI) Accusing the Vilasrao Deshmukh government in Maharashtra of showing ''no concern'' to the 7/11 blasts victims, BJP National Excecutive member and former MP Dr Kirit Somaiya today demanded an action plan to provide help to all 1,077 blast-affected families before the first anniversary of the incident on July 11.

''The attitude of the state government is horrible. In a survey carried out by an NGO, it has been found that out of the 100-affected families, only 53 had received compensation. In Thane district alone, 11 persons are yet to receive compensation from the state government due to the official apathy,'' Mr Somaiya alleged.

All concerned departments must be asked to provide ''legally eligible'' help to the 1,077 blast-affected families, he said.

Dr Somiya, who had recently called on Minister of State in the PMO, Prithviraj Chavan, Railways Board Chairman J P Batra and officials of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in New Delhi, also demanded that there should not be any ''discrepencies'' in the number of victims/affected families and the figure of 1,077, prepared by the Bombay Police, should be treated as the base list for providing compensation.

According to the senior BJP leader, while the Railways had paid ex-gratia to 1,054 victims/families, the state government had attended to only 828 victims/families.

On the contrary, the Bombay Police have prepared a list of 1077 affected victims, whereas the Railway's list showed 1,082 victims, and the state government rehabilitation department has put this figure to only 828, Dr Somiya added.

''The most unfortunate part is that the number of victims differ from department to department, ministry to ministry and government to government. Such anamolies should be removed, and the figure of 1,077 be treated as the base list,'' he added.

Stating that the Special Bench of the Railways Claim Tribunal, which started functioning from November last year, met only four times in the last 10 months, the former BJP MP said only 174 compensation claims had been settled by the Tribunal so far. He demanded that a Full Bench of the RCT Special branch hear the Mumbai bomb blast cases for speedy compensation.

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