BOMBAY, 22 May 2006 — The leaders of the state units of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) have flayed the Congress-led Democratic Front state government in Maharashtra for its failure to order a thorough probe into the stay of three alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists in the state legislators’ hostel here on May 10.
Taking the state government to task, state BJP President Nitin Gadkari questioned as to how the alleged terrorists managed to enter and stay in the legislators' hostel and the names of the legislators that recommended their stay. "The state cannot be allowed to become a storehouse for deadly explosives and arms" Gadkari said.
Mahindra Singh, city secretary of the CPI-M and state vice president of the party's trade union said "the government should immediately probe into the matter, particularly the terrorist-politician nexus. The trend has serious security implications".
The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) Saturday night arrested Aquib from Aurangabad in connection with the explosive haul. This brings the total of people so far arrested to 13.
Meanwhile, the Bombay police are close to solving the mystery concerning which legislator’s room the alleged terrorists had stayed at the state-run Akashwani hostel.
The police are knitting the web around Rashid Shaikh, Congress legislator from Malegaon and Fauzia Khan, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator from Parbhani. Another Congress legislator Shaikh Abdul Sattar Abdul Nabi from Sillod also figures in the list of suspected legislators whose rooms in the hostel were used by the alleged terrorists.
According to police sources, Shaikh's room N0. 501 and Fauzia Khan's room No. 403 were under the police surveillance. Police officials were instructed to question regular visitors to the three suspected legislators' rooms and also grill the staff at the hostel. However, the police so far have no concrete evidence of the involvement of any of the three legislators related to the recovery of explosives or connection with any terrorist outfits.
Officially the police have disclosed the arrest of 13 alleged terrorists, but in fact several Muslim youths have been rounded up and detained for interrogation by the police. Based on the information gathered from the alleged terrorists during interrogation, the ATS has also sought the help of the Indian missions in the Gulf states, said police sources.
