Centre, Chhattisgarh govt responsible for Maoist strike: Azam Khan

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh minister and senior Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan today said both Central and state governments were responsible for the Maoist attack on a Congress convoy in Chhattisgarh.

"The attack has proved failure of the intelligence apparatus of both Central and Chhattisgarh governments," he said.

Slamming the Congress-led Union government, Khan said "when it cannot save its own people, how can a comman man expect security from them."

He said the Centre and the Chhattisgarh government did not initiate social, economic and political steps to check the naxal menace.

Referring to violence in the aftermath of the Ayodhya incident, the Minority Welfare minister said "had they (the government at the Centre) not remained a mute spectator, such events may not have happened."

"Silence of the governments add fuel to the fire and encourage such incidents," the SP leader said.

Twenty-seven people were killed in yesterday's brazen strike by Maoist rebels on a convoy of Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh.