‘Had informed about security laxity in Uttar Pradesh’

NEW DELHI - As a bomb explosion in Varanasi left a child killed and injured more than 20 people, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Lok Sabha member from the Uttar Pradesh temple town Murli Manohar Joshi said Tuesday that he had expressed concern over the “lax security” to the state government.

“I had informed the state government that the security was going out of gear,” Joshi told reporters in New Delhi.

Joshi said the aim of the blast appeared to be to create panic among the devotees during the ‘maha aarti’. “The presence of a large number of foreigners at the site was also significant,” he said.