The media has a field day in attacking Home Minister Shivraj Patil after the Delhi serial blasts last month, questioning his competence and scoffing at his change of clothes on the day of the blasts. Unfortunately, no commentator bothered with any fact-finding before deriding Patil.

The fact is that Patil has done a much better job as home minister than his predecessor, L.K. Advani. Figures available show that the total number of terrorism-linked incidents across the country went down from 36,259 under the NDA regime, to 24,967 under the UPA. While 11,714 civilian deaths were reported then, the number nearly halved to 6,636 deaths under the UPA. Further, the NDA disbursed a sum of Rs. 75,000 crores to the states to improve law and order, while the UPA government increased this amount to Rs. 1,80,000 crore. Patil’s ministry also sent 33 battalions of armed forces to Naxal-affected states, 13 of which were sent to Chhattisgarh, which incidentally is a BJP-ruled state.

It is equally misleading to fault the central government for the increase in Naxalite incidents. Records show that these incidents have gone down in states where the number of police vacancies has been filled up. In Andhra Pradesh, where the Naxal situation has vastly improved, there are only 7 per cent remaining vacancies in the police force.

Patil’s change of clothes on the blasts day was exhaustively covered by the press, but nobody has talked about the subsequent cracking of the case within a week. Instead of praising the Delhi police who killed or arrested the terrorists, fingers are now being raised at the Jamia Nagar episode. Terrorists cannot be linked to any community and a whole community cannot support terrorists by itself. In my view, a Bajrang Dal activist killing Christians in Orissa and other states is no less of a terrorist than those who masterminding serial blasts in our cities.

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