MUMBAI, 2 January 2007 — The Maharashtra police were put on high alert yesterday, following intelligence reports from federal agencies that some terrorists were planning to carry out terrorist acts in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur.
Security has been beefed up at government installations, important religious places, shopping malls, railway and bus stations. Uniformed and plainclothes policemen were keeping a sharp vigil on the movement of suspicious people. The cops were also checking hotels and lodges. Sniffer dogs and bomb disposal squads were stationed at various locations.
Meanwhile, state deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R.R. Patil said in Solapur on Monday that the government will introduce special economical package for the Muslim community in the forthcoming state budget session in March 2006. “For the past eight years we took the votes of the Muslims but did not do any good to them except of providing them jobs of taxi drivers or mechanics,” Patil said.
Addressing a gathering of Muslims at a state-level conference of All Backward Class Muslims, Patil said the Nationalist Congress Party was fully committed to implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee to uplift the Muslim community.
“The state government has also taken serious cognizance of the nearly zero percent presence of Muslims in government services, and steps would be taken to recruit more Muslims in this sector,” Patil said and agreed that gross negligence has been shown toward the Maulana Azad Economical Development Corporation.
Patil also came down heavily on Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee President Prabha Rau for criticizing NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, following his recent meeting with Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Taking pot shots at Rau, Patil advised her to better think about her Congress party instead of interfering in the NCP affairs.
Rau speaking at the Congress foundation day in Mumbai recently said that Sharad Pawar was trying to gain political mileage by meeting Thackeray.
“We are closely watching Pawar.”
She said that exemption of loans up to Rs30,000 for small and marginal farmers was their suggestion to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and that Pawar was trying to gain political mileage out of it.
Patil blasted Rau and said that the NCP has emerged as the biggest party after the recent by-elections surpassing the Congress. “We could have claimed the chief minister sip as the largest party. So the view that Pawar had met Thackeray to try and have an NCP chief minister was baseless,” Patil said.
In another development, federal power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde did a summersault and denied that he was in the race for chief minister of Maharashtra. Shinde whose name was making rounds as successor to Vilasrao Deshmukh, speaking to the journalists in Pune on Sunday, dismissed the reports as “mere speculations.” He praised Deshmukh and said that he was doing a fine job in the state. “ I’m extremely happy with my federal ministerial berth, and the question of change of guard does not arise,” he said.
