Varanasi Blast: Centre-UP fight over missed terror signals

LUCKNOW: Countering Home minister P Chidambarm's remarks on an advisory issued to it, Uttar Pradesh government today said there was no specific actionable intelligence from the Centre about possible terrorist activity in the city and that there was no laxity on its part.

"Holding state responsible is not justified," state cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh told reporters here.

He said, "There was no specific actionable intelligence input regarding a terrorist act in Varanasi. An alert was received on February 25 this year, but that was up to Dusshera festival (in October) only.

"Expecting that input to be specific and actionable even after Dusshera festival is not justified..... Stating that the state was alerted in advance is far from reality," Singh said.

He said that two general alerts were also issued regarding anniversaries of 26/11 Mumbai attacks and demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6.

"Those alerts were general in nature to maintain vigil on these two days," he said.

The cabinet secretary said that there was no laxity on the part of the local police.

"As a routine exercise, ghats where Ganga 'arti' is held is sanitised at 5 PM every day and this exercise was carried out yesterday as well. Thus, there was no laxity yesterday," he said.

Accusing the Centre of lacking willpower required to tackle terrorism, the cabinet secretary said that Chief Minister Mayawati was of the clear view that leaving the issued to the state was not justified.

Asking the Centre to rise above party politics, he said Mayawati has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding adequate security at important religious and tourist places in the state.

"The Chief Minister has requested the Prime Minister to provide 125 companies (12,500 personnel) of central forces so that a lasting arrangement could be made for security," he said.