NEW DELHI, 3 November 2005 — Bharatiya Janata Party President and former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani said yesterday that the Indian government should reject Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s proposal to demilitarize Kashmir at the “very outset.”
Advani blamed Pakistan for not having done enough to dismantle terrorist groups based in its territory.
Advani said: “I think it is not the right time to go ahead with such an adventure (demilitarization).”
Calling on the government to reconsider its decision to repeal the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), Advani said: “The National Democratic Alliance during its tenure had a tough anti-terrorism law. But the Manmohan Singh government scrapped it. I believe now the government should rethink over getting an anti-terrorist law to deal with terrorism, especially after the Delhi blasts.”
The Delhi police, meanwhile, identified one of the chief suspects in Saturday’s blasts as a man around 22 years old and 1.67 meters (five feet five inches) tall.
They released identikit sketches of the man, who was wearing a white shirt, gray trousers and bandages around his head and left hand. One of the images depicted him with a mustache, another shaven and a third with a beard.
Detectives prepared the sketches with the help of witnesses who said they saw the man slipping off a New Delhi bus after leaving a bag with a device which exploded minutes later, police said.
All passengers survived after the driver, Kuldeep Singh, threw the bomb out of the vehicle shortly before it exploded.
Singh suffered severe injuries and yesterday remained in the intensive care unit of a Delhi hospital. His family said he may lose his sight and the use of his right arm.
Police hope that tracking down the bus bomber will help them catch others behind the blasts that also brought carnage to Sarojini Nagar and Paharganj markets ahead of Diwali.
Elsewhere in the Indian capital, families and friends continued the grim task of trying to identify the disfigured corpses of loved ones.
Police at Safdarjung Hospital said they had to perform DNA tests on the badly mutilated remains.
“Clothes, hair, legs, all were blown away,” said Police Inspector P.D. Meena outside the mortuary. “What is there to identify?”
— Additional input from AFP
