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| Modi has something up his sleeve | | Sangh Parivar trying to gain politcal mileage | | From B L KAK
NEW DELHI: Political scene in the country, particularly in Mumbai and Delhi, is likely to undergo a change. Will it be good? Will it be bad? None can answer the questions accurately at this srage.
Opposition parties like the Shiv Sena and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian's commercial capital, Mumbai, have been restrained in their reactions to the July 11 terror attacks. But things are quite likely to heat up in the next few days. The Maharashtra unit of the BJP has roped in the controversial Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, to address a public gathering, condemning the attacks.
Earlier, the BJP planned to have public demonstrations near the Mumbai Raj Bhavan, but better sense prevailed, after the authorities warned them about the dangers of holding such open meets. Narendra Modi addressed party workers at the Shanmukhananda hall in central Mumbai on Monday, while party president, Rajnath Singh, was in Nagpur at a much smaller gathering.
Political observers note that the BJP is trying to extract political mileage by getting Modi to address the Mumbai meet. The July 11 blasts occurred in Mumbai's Gujarati heartland. An estimated 3.5 million Gujaratis live in the metropolis, especially in suburbs like Santa Cruz, Vile Parle, Malad, Kandivali, Borivali and Bhayander.
Samajwadi Party MP, Abu Asim Azmi, has demanded that Modi’s visit should be banned by the government, as trouble could erupt. The Maharashtra police had banned Azmi’s visit to Bhiwandi last week, fearing an escalation in communal tension. About five persons had been killed – including two policemen who had been lynched by a mob — after demonstrators attacked a police station that was under construction next to a mosque. Azmi has accused Mumbai police of harassing Muslims in the city, following last Tuesday's serial blasts. While condemning the blasts, he said many Muslims were being kept under surveillance, and were being projected as ‘terrorists.’
The police have been conducting search operations in largely Muslim-dominated localities, like Malwani in Malad, and Mahim. Hundreds were rounded up and questioned, with the police claiming that many Bangladeshi migrants were living in the slum colonies. However, just about a dozen were detained for further investigations. The police also conducted extensive raids on lodges and cheap hotels on Saturday and Sunday, but no arrests have been made. The authorities are desperate for a breakthrough in the investigations, as no arrests have so far been made.
In fact, the investigators have still not been able to identify the explosives — RDX or ordinary ones — nor name the organisation behind the blasts. The police suspect the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) of masterminding the blasts. Authorities have circulated the sketches of three top LeT operators, who were suspected to have been in Mumbai over the past few weeks. The police had seized consignments of RDX in Maharashtra a few weeks earlier, though the three suspects have been evading arrests.
Notorious for its mafia gangs, most of them led by dons, the financial and film capital of India has quickly gone back to normal with people getting back on the packed door-less commuter trains that carry millions of officegoers each day. Anti-terrorist officers in the sprawling metropolis, with its dozens of slums, said they were investigating an e-mail sent to a TV channel from a group calling itself "Laskhar-e-Qahhar (Army of Fury)", claiming the attacks.
In the e-mail, the group said the attacks were a reprisal for Indian rule in Kashmir and the 2002 Gujarat riots where some 2,500 people were killed, most of them Muslims. It said it planned to target major landmarks in Delhi and Mumbai and the Taj Mahal monument in the northern city of Agra.
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