All Chief Ministers recognise need for body similar to NCTC but they have two principal concerns, says Chidambaram
Though almost all Chief Ministers acknowledged the need for a counter-terror body, on the lines of the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre, the Centre failed to convince them at Saturday's deliberations here to break the logjam over the final and decisive move towards setting up the hub.
Briefing journalists after the Chief Ministers' meeting, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said: “The final decision has not been taken.” While all the Chief Ministers recognised the need for the NCTC or a similar organisation, they voiced two principal concerns: the NCTC's location within the Intelligence Bureau (IB); and why should the NCTC have to undertake operations on its own even in exceptional circumstances?
“There was strong support from many Chief Ministers, qualified support from many and outright rejection of the idea by three Chief Ministers,” Mr. Chidambaram said. The conference was attended by 24 Chief Ministers, Ministers from three States, the Lt. Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the administrators of some Union Territories, besides Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“We will examine the issues raised by the Chief Ministers carefully, and the government will then take a final decision,” Mr. Chidambaram said, hinting that the NCTC, in its present form, would not come into existence for the time being.
Even the Prime Minister's pitch that the NCTC was not a State-versus-Centre issue failed to cut ice with some of the non-Congress Chief Ministers.
Mr. Chidambaram argued that intelligence gathering and investigation were two key areas, and India needed a counter-terrorism body that would be more than a police organisation, capable of mobilising all elements of national power — be it police, diplomatic or judicial. “This gap can be filled only by a highly qualified and trained counter-terrorism body. We feel the NCTC can fill this gap. And, if not the NCTC, then some other body, and that body has to be given certain powers and functions.”
In the past 15 months, he said, 21 terror modules had been busted, thanks to the cooperation between the Central agencies and the State police forces. “What about cases where we have failed? These were potential terrorist attacks. I firmly believe that we need a counter-terrorism body. I came to the meeting with an open mind, and I am leaving with an open mind to examine every suggestion given by the Chief Ministers.
The most optimistic expectation from the Centre's meeting with Chief Ministers is,
all States agree on the way NCTC has been drafted or mutually agreed.The issue
does not end there.For instance, assume an "outfit" or its kingpin responsible for
terrorist activities,is caught by the Agencies and after a long drawn legal process,
the Apex Court awards capital punishment. The convict petitions the President for
mercy,who is either unable or unwilling to decide "one way or other" on the "mercy
petition".The Centre is equally unwilling to expedite the President to decide out of
"respect" to the high office. All along,the "petitioner/convict" is kept in maximum
possible security,health and medical care at the expense of tax payers. So,the govt
should first have a policy for timely disposal of "mercy petitions" from convicts, as
otherwise their "release" under duress against possible "ransom" will ever remain,
thereby rendering nonsensical of all the time, efforts and money to fight terror.
With Pakistan's publicly stated position of "Bleeding India With A Thousand Cuts" do we have the luxury of taking so much time to get the NCTC in place? Beyond a certain extent the PM should put his foot down and use ESMA-esque approach and push this through. I am sure the National Security angle is enough to bull doze it through. I understand we are a democracy but we are getting into an Analysis Paralysis mode.
POTA was misused by many states for political gains. This lead to the
scrapping of the act. After its scrapping of the law We were witness
to incidents of terror in which many innocent gullible people have
lost their lives. The logjam over the formation of NCTC still
continues is a matter of concern. The Chief Ministers should not
bring in politics over the security issue. We need a body like
NCTC. In the absence of any strong law it is hard to tackle terror.
Let both the state and the Centre sort out their difference early and
form the NCTC so as to save the innocent lives of the people from
terror attacks.
Really, state police forces are largely ridden with local politics and
they are neither well trained,equipped,resourced and oriented to
tackle crimes as big as terrorism and nor do they have any interest in dealing with cases that don't have any potential to earn them fast money.And driven to do so, they do it only perfunctorily.So, it would be in the best interest of our country to have a all-equipped central agency( NCTC)having powers to carry out counter terrorist operations in a seamless manner irrespective of political state boundaries that after all are contained in INDIA,OUR NATION.
According to me NCTC should be approved by the goverment as India is in
great need for a counter terror body, as terrorism cannot be alone
controlled by the state police.This body should also be included in
Intelligence Bureau(IB) as this organisation is responsible for
maintaining internal peace in the country and as the people in this[IB]
know better how to handle with terrorism do it would be much easier for
them[IB] to run a separate department for anti-terrorism.
'Good' old days of Mata Hari are over. A few well-trained professions
sitting in remote offices can now collect a lot of useful information
with the available instruments of data collection and analysis.
Electronic content analysis, social surveys with representative samples
and scales and other methods can yield valid and reliable results.
Multiplication of top heavy bloated organisations for this purpose has
become counterproductive. These people waste a lot of their time in
running after one another. Then they sex up or play down whatever is
well known, and tell their bosses what they think the latter want to
hear. Let us be rational.
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