Kolkata: The arrest of nine terrorists, including six from West Bengal, and busting of an al-Qaeda module on Saturday has triggered a political blame game in the state with opposition BJP and Congress alleging that intelligence failure and appeasement politics of the Mamata Banerjee government have led to such a pass.
The ruling Trinamool Congress on the other hand said the arrests can not be construed as failure on the part of the state administration which is committed to flush out terrorists.
The opposition is politicising an issue involving national security, the TMC said. Leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha, Adhir Choudhury said the arrest of six alleged al-Qaeda operatives from Murshidabad district shows “total intelligence failure on the part of state police who are only busy running errands for Trinamool Congress leaders.” “It throws up the question whether the state administration is competent enough to tackle the spurt in terrorist activities in state. Earlier, we had heard about numerous cases of Jamat activists arrested. Now it is al-Qaeda, the most dreaded terror outfit in the world.
“This brings bad name to Murshidabad district which has borders with Bangladesh, to entire West Bengal,” Chowdhury, the WBPCC President said.
He alleged that these incidents send out the message of “communalisation pof olitics which does not augur well for the state.” Flaying the TMC government, senior BJP leader Rahul Sinha said the state should shun “appeasement politics, dirty communal politics and take strong measures against terror modules setting up their bases in state.” Sinha blamed the TMC of practicing votebank politics “which prevents the administration from taking any affirmative steps against terrorists.” (PTI)
