Buddhadeb draws flak from opposition over Kishenji remarks

Opposition parties today slammed West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhatacharjee for his remarks that it was difficult to track down Maoist leader Kishenji, saying it reflected the "ineptness" and "complete collapse" of the state administration.

"The statement is symptomatic of the complete collapse which has visited his administration....I don't think it requires any rocket science for the chief minister to be updated that technologies do exist ....to track down calls," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said.

Bhatacharjee had yesterday said, "We can identify the (mobile) tower but it is difficult to pin-point his (Kishenji's) location in that area".

He said the Maoist leader was talking to "hundreds of journalists every day" but despite this, it was difficult to catch him".

Tewari said, "either the chief minister is completely clueless about the public utterances that he is making or the government of West Bengal has a vested interest in protecting the Maoists".

Terming Bhattacharjee's statement as careless, BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, "This reflects the ineptness of the state government that they are even incompetent to track phone calls...It also undermines the capacity of the police".

He said the remark showed that the state of West Bengal "is completely incapable of tracking down criminals".

Former Intelligence Bureau chief Arun Bhagat said the Chief Minister was, perhaps, not aware of technologies available to track down the callers.