RSS slams BJP,Cong over anti-terror policy,praises Indira

In the context of Maoist extremism,it further maintains that majority of kidnapping cases were in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand,both ruled by the BJP currently.

Critical of the manner in which the Orissa government has capitulated to Maoist demands in return for the safe return of Italian Paolo Basusco and BJD MLA Jhina Hikaka,the RSS has called for a well thought out strategy to be put in place to convey that India is not a weak state where anyone with a few bullets can take the nation to ransom.

Asserting Orissas offer to release 27 Maoist prisoners in various jails is yet another instance of such cases,the RSS contends that the countrys anti-terror campaign may become a joke unless a clear policy to deal with hostage-prisoner swaps and kidnapping by terrorists and extremists are put in place.

In the latest issue of the Organiser,the mouthpiece of the RSS does not spare either the Congress or BJP,saying governments of both parties at the Centre or state,at some point or the other,have given in and released dreaded terrorists and extremists in return for kidnapped individuals.

Whether it was yielding to terrorists in Jamp;K when Rubaiya Sayeed,daughter of the then home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed,was kidnapped or the moment when the then foreign minister Jaswant Singh accompanied top Kashmiri terrorists in 1999 to secure the release of a planeload of Indians,the RSS contends that there has been hardly any instance when the government has stood its ground.

In the context of Maoist extremism,it further maintains that majority of kidnapping cases were in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand,both ruled by the BJP currently. The only exception,it points out,was in 1984 when Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister went ahead and hanged Maqbool Bhatt refusing to yield to Kashmiri terrorists who had taken 48-year-old Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre as hostage in Birmingham,who was subsequently killed by them.

The situation is rather grim,because other than the tangible exchange of men,several intangible fallouts follow. The trust in the governments as the guardian of law and security of the citizens plunges and the temerity of those waging war against the government get a boost, says the Organiser.