Congress defends Rahul Gandhi’s remarks (Lead)
July 14th, 2011 - 11:50 pm ICT by IANS
New Delhi, July 14 (IANS) The Congress Thursday defended remarks of party leader Rahul Gandhi that it was difficult to stop every single terrorist attack and said there was no failure on part of intelligence agencies in the Mumbai blasts that left 17 dead and at least 131 injured.
“The incident (in Mumbai) is very unfortunate… A terrorist has to be right only once out of thousands of times but the security forces and the government have to be correct right all the time. Sometimes that always does not happen… Rahul Gandhi said this evident truth,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said here while answering queries.
Singhvi said Gandhi said something “universally known and commonsensical” and called upon the media not to sensationalise it.
He said the need of the hour was to tighten up belts, work for providing relief to affected families and to take sternest possible action against the perpetrators.
“Hence, irresponsible statements should not be made and I hope the opposition will understand,” he said.
Gandhi said in Bhubaneswar Thursday that the government had been prompt in its response to the blasts in Mumbai and emphasised that 99 percent of terror attacks in the country had been halted due to improved intelligence and other measures.
Opposition parties criticised Gandhi for his remark, saying it would demoralise Indians and showed a careless attitude on the part of the Congress leader.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), an ally of the Congress, also said that metro cities posed their own security problems due to their size but that cannot be seen as a permanent disability.
“We can’t look at it as a permanent disability,” party leader Praful Patel said.
Singhvi rejected suggestions that Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil had failed in his role.
“It happened suddenly. There was no prior intelligence… It is time to work collectively,” he said.
Singhvi denied that blasts meant failure of intelligence agencies.
“There is no failure. If there was an inkling, this would not have happened,” he said.
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