Hunkar 2: Narendra Modi plans to meet families of Patna blasts victims

NEW DELHI: BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will revisit Bihar this week to meet families of victims of the recent bomb blasts in Patna. This could see more barbs being traded between Modi and CM Nitish Kumar.

“Namo will visit blast victims on November 2,” BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi tweeted on Wednesday. “He will start from Patna by helicopter, beginning 7 am.” Six people were killed and scores injured when crude bombs went off at the Gandhi Maidan during Modi’s ‘Hunkar Rally’ on October 27.

BJP plans to announce Rs 5 lakh as exgratia to the families of each of the victims and set up a memorial for them, senior party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters here, adding that Modi had expressed desire to meet victims of the blasts. “It’s a human endeavour,” he said. The JD(U) government, too, has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh for victims’ families.

Following the blasts, BJP has called the Bihar CM “callous” and accused him of playing vote-bank politics by being “oblivious” to the IM threat.

The JD(U) government’s reluctance to take custody of IM operative Yasin Bhatkal in August had led to an unease in the state police, which had played a crucial role in his arrest in Nepal. When Bhatkal was brought to Raxaul in Bihar, police said it had no case against him and left it to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The IM is also suspected of being behind the Bodh Gaya blasts.

Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had said, “We had given input. Now was it general or specific input that is a different thing. Whenever there is a specific input, we give, but whenever there are such rallies, we give input saying you have a rally in your state so there could be possibility of an attack.”