National

Deploy Army in Gujarat: Cong.
By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB 28. In a meeting with the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, late this evening, the Congress strongly demanded the Army be called out in Gujarat to control the outbreak of communal violence.

A delegation led by the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, called on the Prime Minister to express its grave concern and demand urgent steps to rein in the situation.

Ms. Gandhi handed over a letter to Mr. Vajpayee asking him to bring in the Army and urging the Government to take a serious note of the dangerous situation as also the proposed bandh.

Ms. Gandhi and the delegation once again condemned the Godhra incident. In a statement issued on Wednesday, she had condemned the dastardly killings of the train passengers and demanded strong action against the perpetrators and expressed her deep sympathies with the families of those killed in the violence.

Manmohan Singh of the Congress also condemned the incident today during his intervention in the Rajya Sabha. He demanded strong and urgent steps against those responsible for the mayhem.

Briefing newspersons after their 30-minute meeting with the Prime Minister, the CWC member, Kamal Nath said there was a total breakdown of the law and order machinery in Gujarat.

The Government should have anticipated the fallout of Wednesday's incidents and taken appropriate measures to prevent the violence from spreading, he said.

The Congress denied charges that two of its corporators were behind the murderous assault in Godhra. The party clarified that it had ``absolutely nothing to do with the two corporators,'' he said.

He was reacting to charges levelled by the BJP spokesperson, V.K. Malhotra, about the involvement of Congressmen in the attack on the VHP activists.

He accused the BJP of trying to divert attention from the State Government's mishandling of the situation.

The delegation included Arjun Singh, Ahmed Patel and Madhusudan Mistry, Lok Sabha MP from Gujarat.

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