By IANS,
Mumbai : The Shiv Sena has hit out at the Maharashtra government for its “failure” to prevent the terrorist attack in Mumbai and exhorted Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and his deputy R.R. Patil to “go jump in the Arabian Sea if they have even an iota of shame left in them”.
The strong comments from the state’s main opposition came only a day after its key functionary Ramdas Kadam supported an all-party resolution calling for a united fight against terrorism.
In a largely rhetorical editorial in its mouthpiece Saamna Friday, the party held the rulers raising the bogey of “Hindu terrorism” responsible for Wednesday’s terror strike in Mumbai and prophesied the emergence of a new fearless India from the flames of indignation.
“We are sad and angry; we are sad for the spilling of innocent blood and the martyrdom of brave police officers, and we are angry at the utterly incompetent rulers perpetually engaged in appeasing Muslims for votes.
“If the embers keep burning in the hearts of 800 million Hindus in this country, such incompetent rulers and the patrons of terror will be razed in it giving way to a new, fearless Hindustan,” the editorial said.
In an allusion to the reported entry of terrorists from the Arabian Sea, it said: “The sea was calm today; the waves didn’t display their usual dance, ashamed as they were for carrying the boats of terrorists ashore. But do the rulers whose incompetence gave way to the strike have any sense of shame?”
The editorial described Deputy Chief Minister Patil, who holds the home portfolio, as “the architect of failure whose feet are rooted in the flesh and blood of innocent victims and brave martyrs”.
Railing at Maharashtra Director General of Police A.N. Roy for “merely getting swept under the tsunami of terror attacks” and the home secretary for “sitting on important files and spurring the home minister on to act against upright officers”, the edit said such dirty politics and policies have demoralized the police force and emboldened the terrorists.
“The RDX used in the 1993 Mumbai blasts had landed on the Konkan coast from Karachi, this time the armed terrorists themselves came the same way,” the Saamna editorial said seeking to know what the Coastguard was doing.
“Mumbai was dazed, Maharashtra sobbed and the whole nation watched helplessly as the terrorists struck at will, virtually holding the chief minister and his deputy to ransom at gun-point. They had a plan to raze Mumbai and in a way they succeeded, not only in slaying brave policemen but also in maiming the country’s commercial capital”, the editorial concluded.