MUMBAI: The widespread violence in Maharashtra precipitated by the desecration of a statue of Babasaheb Ambedkar in faraway Kanpur has exposed the faultlines in the Democratic Front government.

More than 24 hours after the violence first broke out in parts of Mumbai and Nashik, the authorities have no clue why the riots spread so fast and with such high intensity and how they continued into the second day. The police are blaming certain TV channels for the violence. "For several hours, some channels kept repeating shots of the beheaded statue of Dr Ambedkar in Kanpur. This naturally provoked the Dalits in the state," a senior police official remarked.

It is learnt that DGP P S Pasricha called up the heads of the TV channels and told them to stop beaming the shots. Apparently, his appeal had no effect because all through Wednesday night at least one channel was continuously repeating the objectionable shots.

Supporters of deputy chief minister R R Patil, who is in charge of the state home ministry, said the violence was an orchestrated effort to tarnish his image on the eve of the winter session of the state legislature and dislodge him from the ministry for taking "a tough stand against corruption in police". They also blame a prominent rival of Patil within the NCP for the violence in Nashik.

Rupa Kulkarni, activist of the Dalit movement, however, told TOI on Thursday: "The Kanpur incident only provided the immediate spark. The real reason for the extent of violence was the widespread resentment among the Dalits about the way the DF government mishandled the Khairlanji incident in which a family of four Dalits of Bhandara district, including two women, were murdered. The two women were also raped. This incident was not handled with the sensitivity and seriousness that it deserved. It is true that the murders took place as early as Sep 29. The Dalits took to the streets only after a month-long wait. They hoped that the DF government would bring the guilty to book quickly. After waiting patiently, they decided to give went to their anger against the DF's inept handling of the situation."

Dr Bhushan Gavai, national general secretary of the Republican Party of India (Gavai) said Dalits were certainly upset over Khairlanji. "But I appeal to them to protest peacefully," he added. The law and order machinery failed to rise to the occasion because under a coalition dispensation it has become weak and unfocussed. The home department is with R R Patil of NCP and it is virtually out of bounds for chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. Some of the top police officials themselves do not report to Patil, but to a senior NCP leader.

A senior police official merely asks his personal assistant to file letters received form Patil's office. Patil, with his squeaky clean image, is only being used as a poster boy by the NCP. Minister of state for home Sidhram Mehtre of the Congress has been complaining for the past two years that he is jobless. "Infighting within the top echelons of the police force has peaked," an IAS officer said.

Also, the ineffectiveness of the state intelligence machinery has been demonstrated repeatedly by the bomb blasts. But precious little has been done to revamp it.

The crime statistics of Maharashtra reveal that in many aspects the state is better off than only Bihar.