No difficulty in keeping Abu Jundal in state prison: Maha govt

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government yesterday said there is no difficulty in keeping terror suspect Abu Jundal in the state prison. “If we can keep Kasab in our prison (safe) then it is not difficult for us to keep Jundal in our jail,” Home Minister RR Patil said in the Legislative Council. His remarks came in the wake of the opposition’s claim that Delhi Police was reluctant to hand over Jundal to Maharashtra ATS because they were not sure of safety in the state prisons. [caption id=“attachment_391392” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Abu Jundal. PTI[/caption] Patil said a thorough investigation of Jundal’s role in Mumbai terror attacks, 2006 Aurangabad arms haul case, and Pune’s German Bakery blast case would be done. He also said opposition should not insist on discussion on journalist J Dey murder case as the matter was now in the courts. “If police had not enough evidence, she (Jigna Vora, a journalist with city daily and an accused in the case) would not have been behind bars for the last eight months,” he said. According to police, Dey, a senior journalist, was killed at the behest of gangster Chhota Rajan, and Jigna was privy to the conspiracy. On development of Naxal-affected Gadchiroli district, Patil said priority would be given to local youths in jobs in the area. “We would soon put a proposal in this regard before the cabinet,” he said. Earlier, Leader of Opposition in the Council, Vinod Tawde, had alleged there was no strong evidence against Vora. Asking the government to probe possible involvement of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, Tawde claimed Dey was killed because he had crucial information on IPL match-fixing and was about to expose it. PTI