Maha home minister gets stick from Pawar for blasts

Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil on Saturday got some stick for the "maximum" bomb blasts in the state from Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar who said it reflected poorly on the state administration and aroused suspicions about a "particular community".

"Maximum number of bomb blasts in the last few years have taken place in Maharashtra, especially in Mumbai and Pune.

This reflects poorly on the state administration," Pawar, Union Agriculture Minister, told a press conference.

Pawar said he had asked Patil, an NCP leader, to focus on improving the performance of the police and intelligence departments.

"When incidents such as blasts happen, not only innocent people lose lives but the attitude of the society to a particular community changes," he said, apparently referring to Muslims.

Pointing out that majority of the people readily suspect "a particular community" due to frequent terror attacks, Pawar said it was not good for social harmony and the intelligence department and the police should take note of this.

"I have told state Home Minister R R Patil to pay more attention to this issue. The responsibility of keeping an eye on disruptive elements lies with the state intelligence and police," he said.

Officials, who were not result-oriented, should be shown their place, Pawar said.

"The administration's authority should be visible and be exercised. The authorities in charge of intelligence-gathering and law and order should be assertive and effective. Only then the message would go down to the lowest level.

"A team of state home ministry officials and the minister had visited London last year to study the CCTV system there. It is now more than seven to eight months, we are still at the tender processing stage. This is not good," Pawar said doing some plain-talking.

The key home portfolio has been with NCP ever since it formed a coalition government in Maharashtra with Congress.