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Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008
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Attack on hospital unthinkable: Brinda

Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD: Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat has described as “disgusting” the terrorist attack on the government civil hospital here during Saturday’s serial bomb blasts.

Talking to journalists after a CPI(M) delegation visited some of the blast-hit areas and injured persons in hospitals, she said it was “unthinkable” that the terrorists should strike at institutions like hospitals.

Strongly condemning the “inhuman act,” Ms. Karat hoped that the Centre would make all efforts to bust the terrorist network and inflict severe punishment on the “Satans.”

All-India Anti-Terrorist Front chairman M.S. Bitta, who also visited the blast-hit areas and the civil hospital, expressed confidence that the terrorists would be caught and the guilty punished in due course.

The Congress, the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad took out separate silent rallies in Ahmedabad and some other parts of Gujarat.

The Godhra Muslim Samaj also took out a rally condemning the blasts and demanded maximum punishment for the perpetrators. In the civil hospital, staff members held a meeting to mourn nine colleagues and a doctor couple, who died in the blast at the trauma centre while attending on the injured.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Narendra Modi has supported Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s stand on creation of a federal intelligence service cadre to deal with internal insurgency.

“Such cadre would help inducting professionalism in the intelligence wing which will help the country on a long-term basis,” Mr. Modi said in a letter he submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit here on Monday. Expressing displeasure with the functioning of the existing intelligence network, Mr. Modi said the central agencies acted in a “casual, routine and reactive manner.”

“There has to be a proactive, sincere, organised and continuous effort to unearth terrorist activities, networks and their designs.”

Mr. Modi also criticised the Centre for the delay in clearing the Gujarat Bill against organised crime. It has been awaiting presidential assent for four years.

Insisting on the need for a strong legal measure like the POTA introduced during the NDA regime, Mr. Modi regretted that it was repealed in a hurry by the UPA government without “adequate alternative provisions to deal with terror acts and threats.”

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