The anti-North Indian campaign by MNS chief Raj Thackeray came under severe attack at the union cabinet meeting on Thursday night with strong demands made for his arrest under National Security Act as also a judicial inquiry into the killing of two youth from Bihar and UP youth in the state.

With his ministerial colleagues, especially from Bihar, venting their anger, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who chaired the meeting, revealed he has written a "strongly-worded" letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and asked Home Minister Shivraj Patil to convey the collective strong sentiments of the union cabinet to the state government, sources said.

With Railway Minister Lalu Prasad not present at the cabinet meeting, it was Fertilizer Minister Ram Vilas Paswan who led the charge against Thakceray's campaign and wondered what the Centre was doing when national unity and integrity was being challenged.

He felt Thackeray was being made a hero by arrest-and-release "drama" of the state government and demanded that he be booked under NSA. He was supported by RJD's P C Gupta and Raghuvans Prasad and Congress' ministers P Chidambaram, H R Bhardwaj, Kapil Sibal and S Jaipal Reddy.

The Prime Minister is believed to have said that he shares the concerns of the allies and has written a strong letter to Deshmukh on Monday after a delegation of leaders from Bihar led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had met him.

What more could he do, he is believed to have asked.

The ministers with legal background Chidambaram, Bhardwaj and Sibal were understood to have favoured a judicial inquiry into the killing of the Bihari youth in a bus by Mumbai police on the ground that a civilian probe would not suffice.

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