<http://jharkhand.org.in/>
'Advani trying to create an atmosphere of fear and terror' UNI NEW DELHI: The government on Friday charged BJP leader and NDA's Prime Minister in waiting L K Advani of trying to create an atmosphere of 'fear and terror' by his statement on internal security of the country and said that such 'unfortunate and baseless statements' would only help terrorists. Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said here that Mr Advani's 'baseless statemment was most unfortunate and deserves strong condemnation from all'. However, he refused to comment on whether the government was planning to take any action against the Leader of the Opposition for making such statement saying that in a democracy people took action and they should be conveyed the actual facts. Claiming that the internal security situation in the country, especially in Jammu and Kashmir and North-East, had in fact improved and not deteriorated during the UPA regime, Mr Jaiswal made a scathing attack on NDA-ruled states for failure on checking naxalism. Mr Jaiswal said naxalism was a major issue in Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand, of which all three except Jharkhand was ruled by NDA partners. He said states like Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Orissa had failed to contain the naxal violence despite the Centre giving all kind of support in the form of funds for police modernisation and central para military force. ''Before making allegations against the Centre for failing to contain naxal violence, Mr Advani should first ask his own coalition ruled states. Courage is not in only making statement, it should be followed with concrete action by state governments'' he said and added that the Centre was making all possible efforts to contain naxalism. It had sent 33,000 para military forces in naxal-affected states of which 13000 were in Chhattisgarh alone but law and order being a state subject, the states had to decide when and where to use them. Enumerating the steps being made by the centre, he said that many meetings with Chief Ministers were held during the past three and a half years and Coordination panels had been set up at the Home Secretary, Special Secretary (Internal Security) and Joint Secretary levels. The states must follow the example of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and take action to contain naxal violence. According to Mr Jaiswal, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir had improved by 70 per cent as the number of terror incidents had decreased from 3401 in 2003 to 1054 during 2007. The number of security personnel killed reduced from 314 to 105 while civilian casuality had reduced from 795 to 154 and terrorist killed from 1494 to 460 during this period. Pointing out that the number of tourists had increased tenfold to the state, he hoped that in the next one and a half years, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir would become normal. About North-East, the minister said the situation if not improved had neither deteriorated. In fact, it had improved in Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura, he pointed out and said the government was making efforts to normalise the situation in other states including Assam. However, since the ethnic problem of the region was decades old, it would take time to solve. dnaindia.com/dnaprint.asp?newsid=1149833 Govt a big flop on security, says Advani NEW DELHI: A day after it was forced to reschedule all but one of the rallies planned as part of its Suraksha Sankalp Yatra, after being tipped off about reports of jihadi threat to these programmes, the BJP mounted a scathing attack on the Manmohan Singh government, accusing it of being a complete failure on the internal security front. Addressing the first, and the only one allowed to be held as per schedule, of such rallies at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday afternoon, BJP's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani read out a detailed chargesheet against the ruling coalition at the Centre, contending that its anti-terror policy was a 'big flop' and had 'emboldened jihadis' to carry out their activities within the country without any fear of being caught. The rally, which was held under unprecedented security in view of the enhanced threat-perception to the opposition leader, marked the beginning of the BJP's campaign for next year's general election. With the government's security-alert and the budget session of Parliament providing a break in its plans, the anti-UPA roadshow is likely to be resumed only after a couple of months. Addressing his first public meeting after being declared NDA's prime ministerial nominee, Mr Advani brought the Congress in his firing line, blaming it for virtually all ills afflicting the country. He, however, singled out its track-record on combating terrorism as its biggest failure. The BJP veteran raised four issues — whether Afzal Guru has been given unofficial clemency, the fate of investigations in the terror attacks carried out across the country since 2004, the number of terror modules busted and militants arrested or killed and steps taken to check Bangladeshi infiltration in Assam. On all these counts, he maintained, the prime minister had nothing to answer. ``I can say right now that the prime minister is not in a position to answer any of these questions because he does not have the courage to tell the truth to the nation,'' the former deputy prime minister said while addressing the rally at the Garrison Ground in this cantonment town in Madhya Pradesh. The truth, the BJP leader said, was that the Congress party's inaction was ``dictated by its short-term vote bank considerations, because of which it is imperilling the country's unity, integrity and security in the long term.'' Describing Mr Singh as a weak prime minister, the opposition leader felt that what India needed at this juncture was ``a strong leadership that can tackle the threat of jihadi terrorism'' and ``resolve the big legacy problem that India has inherited from the past bungling by Congress governments.'' Claiming that the people of India were looking for ``a change'' at the Centre, Mr Advani said they were, however, not looking only for a change in government but looking for a change in politics. ``They want a new kind of politics,'' he said. Referring to the postponement of the Suraksha Sankalp Yatra, he said the government had sought some time to provide enough security and the party has decided merely to reschedule the programme, and not cancel it altogether. ``The rallies will continue and I want to tell terrorists that no political party in India is afraid of them,'' Mr Advani declared. economictimes.indiatimes.com/PoliticsNation/Govt_a_big_flop_on_security_says_Advani/articleshow/2762956.cms
