The bomb blasts in the capital on Sunday afternoon in which two (a 12-grader schoolgirl and a 40-year-old woman) were killed and over two dozen people of all ages (from two to seventy years) were injured were simply terrorist acts aimed, in all likelihood, at foiling the constituent assembly (CA) elections just 80 days ahead of the event. The bombs, fitted with timers, were detonated not to destroy any public structure, but to kill and terrorise people. Otherwise, the explosive devices would not have been kept at places where ordinary people throng (at Sundhara, at a bus-stop at Tripureswor, and in a moving microbus carrying passengers at Balaju). Some of the injured have lost their limbs. The blast in the microbus ripped apart a leg of a woman and the area of the explosion was a scene of scattered pieces of flesh, and the blast at Sundhara rendered a soldier armless. These serial explosions represent the first serial blasts since the Maoists joined the peace process.

Two obscure groups have taken responsibility for the blasts. These claims need to be investigated without allowing government and public attention to be diverted from the possible hand of other groups. These dastardly acts have, obviously, triggered off strong reactions from the political parties, the government, civil society and others. The home ministry says it has raised the level of its security alert in the capital. The political consensus emerging from the statements of condemnation is that the blasts represent conspiracies of anti-CA forces designed to spread scare among the general public and torpedo the elections. This at a time when the security situation in the country is far from satisfactory, when the general sense of uncertainty still hangs over the CA polls being held on schedule, but also when the Election Commission and the political parties are slowing building up an election atmosphere.

The blasts suggest that more of these are to come in the run-up to the CA polls. So the government and the eight parties ought to go beyond mere statements of condemnation. On the one hand, the government will have to correct its hitherto complacent attitude to security concerns; on the other, eight parties should come together on the issue and coordinate their approach to internal security threats. No political party should play politics with each other on such a vital and common issue of public safety. As the

various armed groups have sprung up across the country, including the Tarai, the government also needs to differentiate between those who have genuine political agendas and those which are basically criminal. This process will help decide how to deal with each group. Anyway, it cannot shy away from its basic responsibility of keeping the peace and

protecting the life and property of citizens. The government must find out the culprits. The CA polls are likely to suffer if it fails to foil the designs of the anti-CA elements. More of such acts will tend to give strength to the Maoist contention that without a pre-CA declaration of a republic, the elections are

difficult to hold.