Advani visits Ayodhya, slams UPA govt

Scrapping of Pota emboldened terrorists: Advani

Visiting the site of the terror strike near the makeshift temple in Ayodhya, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief LK Advani attacked the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for scrapping Pota saying, it had sent a message that it could compromise on the issue of terrorism.

The terrorist attack has once again brought the issue of Ram temple back in the "mind of the people", he said. "It is my charge that by scrapping Pota, the central government has sent a message that we could compromise on terrorism. This perception must be removed," he said at a meeting of BJP and VHP workers at the Karsevakpuram here.

Interestingly, this was Advani's first engagement in a VHP premises after the recent bad blood between the two following his controversial remarks on Mohammed Ali Jinnah during his Pakistan visit.

Advani, who had led the saffron movement for the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site here and had sought to present a moderate face of late, visited the outer periphery of the Ram janambhoomi complex, the scene of Tuesday's attack.

Police officials narrated to him the details of how the attack was foiled. He was accompanied by party leaders Uma Bharti and Rajnath Singh. Advani said he had come to Ayodhya to see how the militants were able to fulfil their long-standing desire of striking at the Ram janambhoomi complex.

Advani later told reporters "this issue has remained dormant in the past many years in an ironical manner. It's the terrorists who have again resurrected it and brought it back to the minds of the people of the country."

On being asked whether he faced a dilemma on his visit to the place, in an obvious reference to the non-fulfilment of the BJP's promise to construct a Ram temple at the disputed site, Advani replied, "No dilemma. It is not dilemma. We are perhaps nearing our objective."

When asked whether the government should share deep anguish of the Hindus over the incident, Advani said "I would say the whole country. This is an occasion when we should basically think about the Ram temple and the intense desire of millions of people. That's what I feel".

He said "efforts should be made to resolve the issue in an atmosphere of co-ordination and co-operation."Advani said the administration had the information that terrorists were making plans to strike at the complex.

He said during his tenure as Union home minister for six years whenever the Intelligence Bureau and other agencies spoke of threat to important places, it always included the name of Ram janambhoomi on their target. "It is high time that the government took notice of the July 5 incident and launch a thorough inquiry into it, he said.

Advani said, according to media reports, the Centre had put the blame on the state government saying it had tipped the latter on the threat to the complex, while the state government rejected any allegations of security lapse. The July 5 incident must be seriously looked into, especially by the Centre, since it had blamed the state government for the attack, the BJP leader said.

Pointing out that India had been suffering from terrorism for the last 20 years, the BJP chief said if he was to mention the biggest terrorist incidents, it would be the attack on Parliament and Tuesday's strike in Ayodhya.

"I mention the attack on Parliament as the first biggest strike because if the terrorists had succeeded in their design, the political leadership of the country, including the Prime Minister, would have been eliminated," Advani said.

"Similarly, if the militants had succeeded in destroying the make-shift temple, the consequences would have been grave," he added.

Referring to yesterday's serial blasts in London, Advani said "while foreign countries get perturbed with one incident, we have been suffering for it from 20 years."

The BJP leader said the United Nations Security Council had recently proposed that special laws be enacted to deal with terrorism as ordinary legislations were not sufficient enough.

"Keeping this in view, the NDA government had enacted Pota, which was passed by the Lok Sabha, but we had to call a joint session of Parliament to get it endorsed after the Congress and the Left blocked the Bill in the Rajya Sabha," he said.

Our fight and anger were not directed at this particular incident, but is against the mentality which encouraged such incidents, Advani said.

He also referred to the terrorist attacks on the Akshardham and Raghunath temples but sought to differentiate them with Tuesday's attack saying the suicide bombers were included in the latter.

Advani said the people of the country would not be satisfied until a grand temple was built on the disputed site. During the last five-six months of the NDA regime, attempt was made to resolve the issue once and for all and urged the government to make similar efforts to resolve the crisis.