The state government has reportedly opposed the central government’s proposal of handing over the Mumbai blast case investigation to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Union home minister P Chidambaram, during his review meeting at Sahyadri guest house on Monday evening, proposed the state government to hand over the investigation to the central agency from state government’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
On the eve of the completion of two months to the triple Mumbai blast and in the wake of the threat of terror activities on September 13, the union home minister had a meeting with chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, home minister RR Patil and key home officials.
According to the sources, the state government has been asked to beef up the security at vital installations such as nationalised banks, Bombay Stock Exchange in the city. The state also has been asked to improve the intelligence sharing system and speed up the exchange rate between the agencies.
Chidambaram also expressed discontent over the slow pace of the blast probe. However, the state government pressed that its agency was heading in right direction and there was no need to hand it over to the NIA.
Why PC suggested NIA probe?
The Monday meeting of the Union home minister P Chidambaram began not as a review meet but ended up being one. It started when Chidambaram started reviewing 13/7 blasts and finally came to know that there were no specific leads which could give specific details about people involved in the terror attack. As a result, he suggested that probe be handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
NIA are already assisting the state ATS in investigating the blast. But there were reports suggesting that ATS and the Maharashtra police (crime branch) were not sharing details with the central agency.
According to central ministry sources, the central agency created especially for terror investigations, went ahead with getting details from all the possible sources. As reported by DNA, it tried to get leads from south India and other parts of the country.
It continued to share details with the state agencies as it was assisting it in the probe.
The NIA was for the first time awarded the responsibility of conducting primary investigation independently on the first day of recent Delhi blasts while earlier it assisted state agencies in terror attack probes.
