NEW DELHI, 4 October — India’s top policy-making body yesterday reviewed the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of Monday’s suicide attack on the state assembly.
Officials declined to comment on the deliberations of the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), which was chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Soon after the hour-long CCS meeting, Home Minister L.K. Advani left for Srinagar to discuss with state police and security officials steps to strengthen security in the state and prevent terrorist attacks like Monday’s in which 38 persons died and nearly 70 were injured.
Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, the government’s principal interlocutor on Jammu and Kashmir, K.C. Pant, and the three service chiefs attended the meeting. A member of the committee, External and Defense Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh was away on a foreign tour.
The Pakistan-based outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad, had first claimed responsibility before retracting it.
Sources indicate, the government has linked the attack to Osama Bin Laden. Home Ministry officials have said that Jaish-e-Muhammad has direct links with Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda outfit.
However, Bihar strongman and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Laloo Prasad Yadav, has put the blame on the center for the Srinagar blast. He called for the dismissal of Advani. Describing him as the most ineffective home minister the country has ever had, Laloo said that those calling for the imposition of president’s rule in Bihar on the pretext of its “deteriorating law and order” should instead demand Advani’s dismissal.
Vajpayee, in a letter to US President George W. Bush on the attack, said India was running out of patience. “Pakistan must understand that there is a limit to the patience of the people of India,” he said
He also spoke about the national anger in India against the Srinagar terrorist outrage and Pakistan’s alleged complicity in it by noting that the Jaish-e-Muhammad had claimed responsibility for it and a Pakistani national was among the suicide bombers.
Bush assured Jaswant, who delivered the letter, that Washington’s war against terrorism would be truly global and would not end with the action against perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attack in the US.
