Mumbai: The Shiv Sena in Thane will file a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court against the Maharashtra government for ignoring intelligence inputs that led to the Pune bomb blast on February 13.

"The Central government says it gave information on Pune being targeted by terrorists but the state government says it did not receive any specific intelligence reports," Eknath Shinde, a Shiv Sena legislator, told Gulf News. "Who has failed on the security front?" he asks. "The responsibility has to be fixed on the central or the state government." He would be filing a PIL on behalf of the party within a week's time.

He questioned whether the state government had compromised on security at places targeted by the terrorists since the "it was more anxious to ensure that the Shah Rukh Khan movie was released without a problem and therefore posted a majority of the police force for this job. Even the state home minister, R.R Patil, went to see the movie. Earlier, a heavy police security was deployed for the visit of Rahul Gandhi in Mumbai." The tragedy could have been averted if the state had been prepared following the alert issued by the Centre, he notes.

Meanwhile, an ex-judge of a labour court and a practising lawyer, V.P Patil, has filed a PIL in the Bombay High Court for an inquiry into the state's slip-up that led to the terror attack that claimed ten lives and left over 60 injured and its failure to protect citizens.

Patil, who had filed a PIL soon after the November 26 2008 terror attack, has demanded that the compensation being paid to the victims' relatives be recovered from those responsible for failing to prevent the blast. The PIL points out to the lack of coordination between the centre and state though both the governments are ruled by the same political party.

He says, "I have recorded Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram's statement on TV that intelligence regarding the threat was provided to the state. If the government can protect My name is Khan, why has it failed to protect citizens?" The PIL also states that the late Lal Bahadur Shastri had resigned because of a railway accident but Maharashtra's home minister, despite being proved inefficient during 26/11, has not resigned from his post.

The chief secretary of the state, director general of police, Pune police commissioner and additional chief secretary and home department have been made respondents in the petition.