Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta on Friday said that the state became a "safe haven for terrorist and disruptive forces" during the Congress rule from 1993-2003.
"During 1993-2003, when Congress was in power, Madhya Pradesh had become a safe haven for the terrorist and disruptive forces as all the major incidents that took place within the country at that time had direct or indirect links with the state," Gupta told PTI in an interview.
"In that period, large quantity of illegal weapons were found from Khargone district's Jhiranya (village of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who was allegedly killed in a fake encounter in Gujarat); many activities of the banned SIMI came to fore; passports of persons connected with underworld were made at Bhopal and Naxals were running an illegal weapons manufacturing facility here," he said.
After the BJP came to power in MP, it busted the Naxal illegal arms factory, destroyed the SIMI network in the state, besides keeping an effective check on activities of Maoists, land mafia and adulterators, the minister said.
On the current status of several arrested SIMI activists, against whom no charges have been proven in the court of law, the minister said he did not want to comment on the court's procedures but added that even judges have agreed on the delay in giving justice to people and have therefore, felt the need to try such cases in special courts.
"Keeping this in mind we have also passed a bill on the lines of MCOCA in Madhya Pradesh for the speedy trial of such cases in special courts," Gupta said.
"I hope that the Centre too will give its assent to the new law soon," he said adding it help in dealing effectively with terrorism and other such nefarious activities.
On National Crime Records Bureau's (NCRB) 2008 figures rating Indore at the top of the crime chart, Gupta said it was due to the fact that in MP cent percent crimes are registered.
"This has resulted in the rise in crime graph in MP but the situation is not like Bihar or Uttar Pradesh as alleged by the Opposition," he said.
"If you go by the figures, definitely there is a upward trend in the crime graph in the state, but it is due to the fact that here we have directed the police to register all the crimes and not to turn away anybody from police stations, specially poor and weaker sections," Gupta said.
"To a large extent the situation is very peaceful in the state as people, specially women can move freely anywhere," the minister added.