DEHRADUN: The Bharatiya Janata Party attacked Pakistan and the Manmohan Singh Government in equal measure here on Saturday for the continuous chain of terror attacks.

It charged the Government with playing vote-bank politics while dealing with terrorism, even while Pakistan had successfully begun using its "Indian assets" to spread terror in India.

Adopting a hard-hitting four-page resolution on internal security on the last day of its National Executive Committee meeting here, the party promised to make this issue an election plank and take it up through a nationwide programme. It warned that new links would continue to be created in the terror chain unless the UPA Government delinked vote-bank politics with plans to cope with the problem.

"I hold the entire Government responsible [for what happened in Malegaon]," the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said as he emerged from the venue of the session. The Government was taking inadequate steps to handle the situation.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi blamed the Government "for waiting for the next terror attack" instead of strengthening its intelligence gathering.

Indigenous terrorism

The party resolution pointed out that until a few years ago, terror attacks had only cross-border involvement. "Of late, the participation of home-grown terrorists to aid and assist cross-border terrorism has been on the increase. This rise in indigenous terrorism is a direct result of the appeasement policy and the huge illegal Bangladeshi population in the country."

Party general secretary Arun Jaitley, who moved the resolution, said the UPA manifesto had not highlighted internal security as a core issue. The only reference to the subject was in its resolve to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and this had signalled a "soft approach" to the problem, Mr. Jaitley charged. He condemned the Malegaon explosions and the loss of innocent lives. Asked whether the BJP would demand the ban of Hindu organisations which allegedly spread communal hatred, as was done with the Students Islamic Movement of India, Mr. Jaitley said the BJP would not be a party to such a demand. He added that tribunals had not upheld similar bans on Hindu outfits such as the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

On CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat's demand to investigate the link between the Malegaon terrorist attack, bomb blasts in Nanded in April, in which two Bajrang Dal activists died while making bombs, and several blasts in mosques in recent years, Mr. Jaitley said: "The CPI (M) supports the UPA, which has adopted policies that encourages terrorists."

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