Advani may have been the target: Gupta

CALCUTTA, February 15: ``There are reasons to believe that yesterday's Coimbatore serial blasts might have been an attempt on the BJP presid...

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CALCUTTA, February 15: “There are reasons to believe that yesterday’s Coimbatore serial blasts might have been an attempt on the BJP president L K Advani’s life,” the Union Home minister and veteran Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Indrajit Gupta said.

Gupta, who was addressing a meet-the-press programme here today, announced that “the Government is trying to ascertain if the blasts were a handiwork of foreign agents. Though there is no proof with the Government to suggest that there was a foreign hand in the blasts, it’s role cannot be ruled out altogether.”

He, however, said this could be carried out by the fundamentalist and extremist forces. The blasts left over 47 dead and several other injured in Tamil Nadu yesterday.

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He defended Tamil Nadu Government’s decision to impose a ban on Al-Umma and the All-India Jihad Committee which were born as a backlash to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

Gupta urged all political parties to condemn the blast. He said the Tamil Nadu Government hasalready began a high-level inquiry and arrested over 205 people for interrogations.