After Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde sounded not very firm on deployment of Central Industrial Security Force jawans at Mahabodhi temple, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has made a public appeal to the UPA Government to cooperate with the State Government for making elaborate security arrangements in and around the temple in view of its special position it occupies among Buddhist pilgrims worldwide.
Before leaving for Madhubani to lay foundation stone for a road project, Kumar told mediapersons in Patna on Thursday that Mahabodhi temple is unlike other religious places as it is visited by a very huge number of Buddhist pilgrims from foreign countries every year.
Mounting his pressure on the UPA Government to provide CISF jawans for the Mahabodhi temple, he said that the security of Mahabodhi temple could not be compromised at any stage as the temple symbolises the faith of crores of Buddhists scattered across the globe.
He said that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is conducting probe into the serial bomb blasts which took place inside and also outside Mahabodhi premises and one should wait before the NIA arrives at any conclusion.
He said that Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee (BMTC) has provided the task of ensuring internal security of the Mahabodhi temple to the private security guards and investigators are also probing how small gas cylinders reached inside premises of the Mahabodhi temple.
“We should all initiate steps for the security of Mahabodhi Temple by considering it as our primary duty,” he added. “Nobody should shy away
from accepting faults if he has committed it and should take appropriate steps to correct them in the future,” he remarked.
The CM said that nobody should also do any politics on the serials blasts as it is not the time for making allegations and counter
allegations. He said that the State Government is fully cooperating with the NIA so that the truth behind the blasts could be reached. Shinde along with Congress president Sonia Gandhi and senior Congress leaders had visited Bodh Gaya on Wednesday but he did not show UPA Government’s immediate consideration for deploying CISF jawans at Mahabodhi temple as requested by Kumar. Shinde could only say that CISF jawans have not been deployed at any religious place so far and a similar requests were made by Sai Baba temple at Shirdi and also by Jama Masjid. He, however, made an assurance that the UPA Government was considering Kumar’s request for deployment of CISF jawans at Mahabodhi temple.