Press Statement issued by
Shri L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)

During his visit to Mumbai on the occasion of the first anniversary of the serial bomb blasts in local trains

Mumbai – July 11, 2007

• PM’s “sleepless night” statement is tantamount to appeasement of terrorism
• Slave to vote-bank politics, UPA Govt has neither the will nor the clarity to fight terrorism

Today is the first anniversary of 7-11, the byword for one of the worst acts of terrorism in world history: the serial bomb blasts in commuter trains Mumbai on July 11, 2006 . It was the second instance of a serial terrorist attack on Mumbai, the first having taken place on 12 March 1993 . I had come to the city on July 12 last year, gone to several blast sites, visited hospitals where the wounded were being treated and met the relatives of some of the 187 innocent persons killed in the terrorist attack.

Since then, my colleagues in the BJP and I have been closely following this matter – both at the humanitarian level by trying to reach relief and rehabilitation to the victims and their families and at the political level by raising the issue in Parliament, with the Prime Minister and other authorities. I had written a letter to the Prime Minister last year, when it was brought to my attention that the various governmental agencies were slow and bureaucratic in fulfilling their promises to the surviving victims of 7/11.

I had specially come to Mumbai on the 9 th of last month to visit two victims who are still in coma -- Shri Parag Sawant in Hinduja Hospital and Shri Amit Singh in Jaslok Hospital . It was a heart-rending experience to see their plight. I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on the same day expressing my anguish at the unresponsive and extremely slow manner of the official relief and rehabilitation work by central and state government agencies.

I had declared on that day that I would visit Mumbai again on July 11, to participate in the commemoration of the first anniversary of 7/11. My first duty is to pay homage to all those who lost their lives in this barbaric and anti-national act. Today is an occasion to reassure the families of the dead, and also the thousands of families of the wounded, that the society has not forgotten them and that we shall continue to stand by them.

I profusely compliment the Mumbai unit of the BJP, Yuvak Pratishthan headed by our former MP, Dr. Kirit Somaiya, and all the other NGOs and public-spirited individuals who have taken up the cause of relief and rehabilitation of the victims as a patriotic mission. As a result of their tireless efforts and meticulous ground-level study of the condition of the victims, which I had brought to the attention of the Prime Minister, I am told that there has been a partial improvement in the official relief and rehabilitation work. Today I once again urge the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra to ensure that every single promise made to the victims is fulfilled before Independence Day. Already over a year has passed. Any further delay and callousness in this matter would be unpardonable.

* * *

The first anniversary of 7/11 is also an occasion to ask some hard questions about the utter failure of the UPA Government to tackle the scourge of terrorism inspired by religious extremism. In the three years of the Congress-led government at the Centre, the only “achievement” vis-à-vis the issue of terrorism for which it can take credit is that it repealed POTA.

On July 12 last year, Home Minister Shri Shivraj Patil, after a visit to Mumbai, had stated that “The Government has enough evidence of perpetrators of the blasts and would take stern action against the culprits and share all the information with the people at the appropriate time.” Today I want to ask both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister: “What stern action has been taken against the culprits? What information about them have you shared with the nation?”

Indeed, the UPA Government failed to get to the bottom of any of the major terrorist attacks in the last three years -- Ayodhya, Samjhauta Express, Sankat Mochan Mandir in Varanasi , IISc in Bangalore , Sarojini Nagar in New Delhi . It has not cracked even those cases where the terrorists have targeted Muslim religious places: Malegaon , Jama Masjid in Delhi and Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad .

This failure is self-willed. This is because the UPA Government is not only unable to comprehend the nature of the terrorist threat to India and thus to evolve a firm plan of action to combat it, but it is unwilling to do so out of considerations of vote-bank politics. I suspect that foreign pressure is also at work.

Soon after 7/11, the Prime Minister’s first reaction was that it was the handiwork of Pakistan . However, within a few weeks, he announced in Havana , after a meeting with Gen. Pervez Musharraf, that India and Pakistan would establish a Joint Mechanism to fight terrorism. It was shocking to see that the India , in its fight against terror, was going to join hands with the very same country that has all along used terrorism as a state policy against India . Indeed, previous governments had spent many years to convince the world community that the source of global terrorism is Pakistan . Yet, under foreign pressure, the UPA Government last year made a U-turn on India ’s approach and decided to consider Islamabad as a partner in the fight against terrorism.

Another shocking instance of the Government’s muddled thinking on terrorism is the Prime Minister’s reported statement last week that he spent a “sleepless night” at the plight of the families of those Indian nationals who are suspected to be involved in terrorist activities in Britain . As subsequent media disclosures have shown, at least some of these Indian nationals were indeed a part of the terrorist activities in Britain .

One has not heard of the Prime Minister having spent sleepless nights at the plight of victims of 7/11 or any of the other terrorist attacks that have taken place in the past three years. To say the least, the PM’s statement was unfortunate. It was tantamount to appeasement of terrorism.

One cannot expect the Congress party and the UPA Government to admit their mistakes and abandon their dangerous “kid-glove” approach to terrorism inspired by ideologies that spread hatred against India . One cannot expect them to take strong measures to stop the alarming spread of local cells of foreign-inspired terrorist organizations. This is because the UPA Government has chosen, as a principle of survival in office, to communalise India ’s internal security policy.

Therefore, on the first anniversary of 7/11, I am constrained to say that, to get rid of terrorism one must first get rid of this weak and visionless government at the Centre.