Panaji, Feb 17 (IANS): Chief Minister Pramod Sawant last week downplayed a terror threat to Goa, because the Opposition demanded closure of casinos in the state, which are potentially vulnerable to such attack, state Congress president Girish Chodankar said on Monday.

Addressing a press conference in Panaji at the party's state headquarters, Chodankar also slammed Sawant for blaming the media for triggering panic, after the North Goa Distrct Administration last week imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code citing a terror threat, before denying any threat to the security of the state days later.

"On the one hand, he (Sawant) says that intelligence of a terror attack is a routine matter. Then he says that the threat no longer exists. The government is denying a terror threat to Goa because we have demanded that casinos in Goa should be shut down until the threat blows over," Chodankar told a press conference in Panaji on Monday.

The six offshore and nine onshore casinos operating in Goa are frequented by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

Last week, the North Goa district administration had imposed the prohibitory order for a period of sixty days citing intel, which hinted at a terror alert in the Western Indian region.

After criticism of the order, which the Opposition as well as the tourism industry stakeholders described at indiscriminate and damaging to the state's tourism interests, especially the popular festival of Carnival, which begins on February 22, North Goa District Collector R. Menaka said that there was no terror threat and the imposition of Section 144 was a "routine matter".

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Saturday had also said, that "unprecedented media coverage" of the order promulgating Section 144 CrPC may have created panic among locals as well as tourists.

"How can he blame the media for creating a terror scare. I condemn this statement of the Chief Minister," Chodankar told reporters.