ON BOARD PRIME MINISTER's SPECIAL AIRCRAFT: Condemning the Mehrauli blast as an "outrage", Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday that his government will "never give up the war against terror" and called for strengthening of intelligence and investigative processes to deal with such incidents.
"It is most unfortunate that this blast has taken place. My heart goes out in sympathy to the victims of the blast and their families," Manmohan Singh said while expressing shock and grief at the latest terror strike in the Indian capital Saturday in which two people were killed and 17 injured. The prime minister was speaking with media persons on way from New York to Marseilles, where he will attend the India-EU summit.
The prime minister, however, refused to speculate on the identity of the terrorists. "It is not possible for me to comment from this distance on who is responsible for this outrage. This outrage once again demonstrates that we have to further tighten our intelligence gathering and strengthen our investigation and prosecution processes."
"We can't give up the war against terror. We will fight with all the resoluteness that is necessary to deal with it (terrorism)."
Saturday's blast, the second to hit the national capital in two weeks, came a day after Manmohan Singh rallied world leaders "to strengthen international cooperation to combat terrorism and to bring the perpetrators, organisers, financers and sponsors of terrorism to justice".
Earlier, the prime minister had said that his government had not "reached any conclusion" on a new anti-terror law to counter rising terrorism and had asked a group of officials to study a report on the issue.
"I have not reached any conclusion yet. I have asked a group of officials to study the report of the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC)," the prime minister had said on Sep 24. He was referring to the report of the ARC headed by Congress leader M Veerappa Moily that recommended a more stringent anti-terror law to deal with the recent spate of terror attacks in Indian cities, including the Sep 13 Delhi serial blasts.
