Memo to Governor on bomb blast

MEMORANDUM TO THE HON’BLE GOVERNOR

1^st August, 2008

We the undersigned, are of the firm opinion that the failure of the Government and its police administration to acquire credible advance information and intelligence input was singularly responsible to prevent the cowardly act of the serial bombing that killed over 50 innocent people at Ahmedabad. It was the duty of the Government to protect the citizens from such violent attacks but this was the third time that the Government completely failed to rise to the occasion. It may be recalled that on 27^th February, 2002 also, the Government had no intelligence input regarding the Godhra incident when 59 innocent people died. Similarly, in the Akshardham incident also, several people died due to the intelligence failure of the Government. Once again, on26th July, 2008, the Government had absolutely no clue whatsoever about the large scale planning of the violence that killed the innocent people with complete impunity!

We therefore demand a white paper from the Government regarding this repeated failure of the Government to tackle violent attacks on the innocent citizens specially when the Government agencies claimed complete intelligence input into the fake encounter cases. In the cases of the “encounter” deaths of Sohrabuddin, Sadik Jamal, Ishrat Jahan, Tulsi Prajapati etc, the Government claimed to have detailed information regarding the movements of the such “terrorists” who they claimed had entered Gujarat to kill the Chief Minister yet the same agencies had absolutely no intelligence inputs in the case of the real attacks that left hundreds of innocent people dead in Gujarat.

We are also of the opinion that the repeated statement of Lalkrishna Advani demanding POTA reflects his complete ignorance on the subject as well as his strategy of tackling the terrorist issue. Firstly, POTA though formally repealed has already been enacted once again and put into the “Prevention of unlawful activities Act”. Secondly, no law can prevent terrorist acts but can only punish the terrorist after the commission of the act. Does Advani want to people to die such that his POTA can be applied?

Lastly, we are of the opinion that it would be wrong at this stage, in absence of any information, to blame any group for the 26^th July event. While it is true that the Muslim community has been denied justice for the reprehensible violence perpetrated against them in the 2002 riots, it would totally unfair to link the violence of 26^th July,2008 with the hurt feelings of the past. We therefore demand a complete impartial inquiry by a Judicial Commission presided over by a sitting Supreme Court Judge into the event of 26^th July, 2008 at Ahmedabad and also the events of the discovery of Bombs at Surat. We further demand the revamping of the intelligence system to prevent further violence.

Mukul Sinha

on behalf of the delegation.

(L to R) Amrish Patel, Rajesh Mankad, Subramaniam Iyer, Mahesh Bhatt, Gaurang Rawal, Girish Patel, Mukul Sinha, Usman Qureshi, Samsad Pathan, Nirjhari Sinha, Sophia Khan, Vishnu Kadam, Anjum Sayed, Swaroop Dhruv and Hiren Gandhi