Raj Thackeray Gone Mad ?

Mumbai, July 14 (IANS) Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray Thursday blamed the north Indians and migrant population, including illegal Bangaladeshis, in Mumbai for Wednesday's triple blasts which left 17 dead and 131 injured.

'Mumbai, Thane and other parts of the state are teeming with migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and illegal Bangladeshis. Unless the government checks the influx of migrants, such acts of terror will not stop,' he said at a press conference here.

Thackeray said the migrants are indulging in all types of criminal activities, ranging from rapes to murders, and many such cases have been exposed in the past few days.

Elaborating on his theory, he said there is absolutely no monitoring of how many migrants come to Mumbai daily, who they are, where they come from, where they live in Mumbai, what is their business and where all they go.

'We have blamed police and intelligence enough in all these years, now it is time to check on the migrants. They come and occupy every vacant space of land belonging to the central, state or civic authorities. 40,000 hutments are constructed on Mumbai's drinking water pipelines. Later, they are pampered as vote-banks and given free flats. What is being done about all this?' Thackeray said.

Demanding a check on each migrant who enters Maharashtra from different entry points, he said that today nobody knows whether the migrants are carrying vegetables or bombs in their baskets.

'They blatantly enter Mumbai, live on railway platforms or footpaths and there is no check on them. After every terror attack, the names of ISI (Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence), (terror outfits) LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba), IM (Indian Mujahideen) and others are thrown up, but who provides them the local logistical support?' he asked.

Thackeray then asked a media person whether he knew where the kitchen of Taj Mahal Hotel is situated. When the media person said he did not, Thackeray said even he did not know - but Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist caught alive in the 28/11 attack, was aware of it.

The Pakistani terrorists, or Afghanis or anybody else cannot carry out terror attacks with such precision without local support, he pointed out and asked: 'Who is providing it?'

Lashing out at union Home Minister P. Chidambaram for his remark that 'Mumbai is a crowded city', Thackeray asked how did the city become crowded?

Similarly, Thackeray hit out at Bharatiya Janata Party L.K. Advani for his statement on 'policy failure' of the central government.

'It was during the NDA government at the centre when the Samjhauta Express and the bus services (to Pakistan) were started. What was the need for it? What kind of policy it was?' he asked.

Citing the example of US, Thackeray said that post-9/11, that country has not witnessed a single terrorist attack - while India has undergone a string of terror attacks in as many years.