Congress holds intelligence failure responsible for blast

Agartala, Oct 2 (UNI) The Congress today held state intelligence and the state government responsible for the serial blasts in Agartala last night and demanded Rs 50,000 compensation along with free treatment of the victims.

The party also demanded a CBI probe into the statement of the CPI (M) which indicted the opposition leaders behind the blasts and alleged that the Left Front government had made Tripura a free passage for the international terrorists.

Addressing mediapersons here, Tripura Congress president Samir Ranjan Barman said the Union Home ministry and other central security agencies had repeatedly alerted the state government about the presence of international terrorist outfits like HUJI, ISI and Al-Qaida in Agartala but the police and it's subsidiary agencies overlooked it.

''BSF intelligence has also apprehended the possibility of such incident in the state just a week before and sent the inputs to the state government but this was also ignored, which established the negligence on the part of the state government,'' Mr Barman said and added that about 10,000 anti-nationals linked with international terrorist outfits had been living in the state for long.

Mr Barman stated that AICC had sent it's secretary Sanjoy Bapna to Tripura who met the victims in the hospital and would submit the report to Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi tonight.

Leader of the Opposition Ratan Lal Nath has also lashed out at the Manik Sarkar government for the post blasts security scenario in the state.

He said former Joint Director of Central Intelligence M K Dhar in his book said Islamic fundamentalist organisations made a module of their anti-Indian activities in the county and opposition members had drawn the state government's attention in this regard.

Referring to the security position in the state, Mr Nath said ''Tripura has 839 security personnel for one lakh people, highest in the country, which is only 122 per lakh at national level and even then the people of the state were not safe from the international terrorists.'' UNI BB ADG RP HT1750