National security isn’t a tug of war

The blast that killed two and injured one at Khagragarh in Burdwan district, West Bengal, has indeed become a vortex of muddled facts and a tug of war between the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government and the Narendra Modi-led Centre. While NIA and Bengal Police too, instead of fully cooperating with each other, are often at loggerheads, causing major embarrassment to either establishment, contradictions in their respective reports have actually drawn attention to the fact that blast might just have become a pawn in the great game of political one-upmanship between TMC and BJP. That the blast took place is indeed beyond a straw of doubt and that terror modules with links to Bangladesh-based HUJI and JMB might be involved is increasingly becoming clear. But what is particularly perplexing is that at this sensitive juncture, the Centre and the State are busy playing a cat and mouse game, blaming each other for the gross security breach. In fact, some media reports have pointed out that the identification of Karim Sheikh, the youth who died in the blast, might not have been identified correctly. Moreover, while national security is a central subject as is border fencing and securing the adjoining areas, this cannot happen without cooperation from the State police. Given that the topmost investigative agencies, especially the CBI, are known to be ‘caged parrots’, bending to politicians’ whims depending on who occupies the seat of power, the newfound bloodthirst for unearthing the chit fund nexus in West Bengal, it would seem, has more to do with the fact that TMC is a formidable opposition in the national dais and still indomitable force to be reckoned with in Bengal. While investigations into the financial and security lapses must be carried out and perpetrators brought to book, political vendetta shouldn’t be put above all other considerations.