Govt failed to prevent Pune blast despite intel reports: Sushma Swaraj

Strongly reacting to Union home minister P Chidambarm's statement denying any intelligence lapse behind the Pune blast, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj today said the failure actually was on the part of the government.

"The government had intelligence reports indicating the vulnerability of the Koregaon Park area but it could not prevent the terror attack on innocent people", Swaraj, who was accompanied by BJP President Nitin Gadkari, told a press conference here.

Both the leaders, who visited the blast site and the injured in hospitals, said the Pradhan Committee report on the 26/11 attack too went unheeded.

They said the modus operandi of the Pune blast resembled the Mumbai attacks engineered by David Headley who was targeting foreign nationals in India to make an international impact.

On the proposed Indo-Pak talks, the two BJP leaders said the government had taken a 'U' turn changing its earlier stand on the issue without taking Parliament into confidence. 

Sushma also objected to the argument that the Pune blast was designed to thwart the proposed parleys saying the attack had nothing to do with foreign secretary-level interaction.

"We are firmly against holding of the February 25 talks which have been rendered meaningless in the wake of the barbaric terror attack in Pune," Swaraj asserted.