Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Sunday said he did not support the pub culture, but the issue was not worth the fuss. “It’s not that I support the pub culture. But we need to pay more attention to security and other important issues,” Chavan said, when asked to comment on the Mangalore incident.

He assured that if any organisation tried to attack pubs in the state, the police were equipped to deal with it. He stated that in the wake of terror attacks “security was more important than pubs or dance-bars.” The previous government of Vilasrao Deshmukh had come in for flak due to the decision to ban dance bars in Mumbai.

Chavan was talking to reporters after a function in which family members of policemen and NSG commandos, who died in the Mumbai terror attacks, were handed petrol-pump dealerships.

In the wake of differences that emerged in the National Commission for Women after its delegation probed the Mangalore pub attack, the Centre on Sunday dispatched its team on a fact-finding mission in connection with the incident. Sources said the NCW team to Mangalore had not submitted its report and the decision to send a new team was taken in view of the “urgency” of the matter.

“I am just meeting (people) and seeing the premises (of the pub). We are waiting for the report of the NCW and we are coming to see the security part especially for the places where men and women go together,” said Joint Secretary Kiran Chada, who will lead a two-member team of the Ministry of Women and Child Development from Delhi.

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