LS passes adjournment motion on AP blasts

New Delhi, Aug 29: Prabhunath Singh (JD-U) today asked the UPA government to bring back the Prevention Of Terrorist Activities (POTA) Act to check incidents of bomb blasts similar to those that rocked Hyderabad last week.

Initiating the debate in the Lok Sabha on an adjournment motion, Mr Prabhunath Singh said it was shocking that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had talked of creating a special fund for victims of terrorist violence, instead of taking measures to foil such attempts by Naxalites and terrorists who had infested almost all the states.

Earlier in the morning, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee had admitted the ''Adjournment Motion: Failure of the government to contain terrorist violence in the country as evidenced by a series of recent events, the latest being the twin blasts in Hyderabad in which 42 innocent citizens lost their lives and 50 were injured.'' The motion had been moved by Mr Prabhunath Singh and several other opposition members.

The JD(U) leader said the Prime Minister's statement had shaken the confidence of the people in the government as it amounted to admitting that the Centre was not capable of checking terrorism.

He said the UPA government had revoked POTA for merely taking political mileage, without any concern for the deteriorating internal security situation.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil was only making stereo-typed statements in the House without showing any result on the ground, he said.

UNI