It is time to bring back stringent anti-terrorism laws to rein in the growing menace of terrorism in India
The debate regarding what we have and what we want will probably never
culminate. If we actually had a solution to this predicament, India would have been able to evade its internal conflicts. If nothing else, then at least the inconsequential blame game of having insufficient and ineffective terror laws between the UPA and BJP could have been avoided. But all this hardly matters to the people who lost their loved ones in various terrors attacks; all that matters to them is that their lives are in jeopardy!
Eight blasts in Bangalore followed by 19 in Ahmedabad killed 52 people and left over 100 injured in all. And if Surat’s 21 bombs were not defused in time, the total number of explosions within the country would have easily crossed the ‘glorifying’ figure of 48 within just 2 days time. But, the irony lies in the fact that even in these tough times, political parties are busy playing what they are best at – politics. While the UPA states that the existing National Security Act, 1980, which is the law of preventive detention and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, which has made provisions to penalise unlawful activities and check the menace of organisations funding terrorists, are effective enough, the BJP disagrees. But, in fact, the bigger debate today is on the revival of Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which was repealed by the UPA government in 2004. “We need to revive POTA. In existing laws like UAPA, important components are missing, even getting bail is comparatively easy,” Former Law Minister Arun Jaitley told B&E.
POTA has nine essential features: Definition of ‘terrorism’, making funding of terrorism an offence, provision for confiscating money and assets earned as profits of terrorism, interception of communication between terrorists, ban on terrorist outfits, stringent bail provisions and protection of witnesses and constitution of special courts to try out offences. Moreover, under POTA, a person, if found guilty, could be detained for up to 180 days without any court filing.
Even law enforcement agencies are allowed to ‘withhold the identities of witnesses and treat a confession made to the police as an admission of guilt.’ Under the regular Indian law, one can deny such confessions in the court, but not under this Act. If the government figures are to be believed, in just a span of two years (between 2002-04) over 4,000 people were booked under this Act, out of which some 800 were arrested and subsequently jailed. Today, around 32 organisations including SIMI and LTTE are banned.
But things seemed to have changed from the time POTA has got repealed. Today, the situation is such that even state organised crime laws seem more stringent than terrorism laws. Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), 1999 defines a terrorist act in a far better manner than even POTA. Where POTA did not take note of organised crime, MCOCA not only mentions that but also includes `promotion of insurgency’ as a terrorist act. Furthermore, under POTA, proving a person guilty depended upon prosecution, while under MCOCA a person is presumed guilty unless proved innocent. Another difference is that MCOCA does not stipulate prosecution of police officers found guilty of its misuse, whereas POTA did. All these were probably the reasons as to why L. K. Advani demanded the implementation of the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Bill (GUJCOC), which is awaiting clearance from the centre.
If we take the instance of the US, all terrorist activities have been largely contained after the implementation of Patriot Act post- 9/11. Clearly, there can be no alternative to stringent terror laws, since the law and order situation in India is only going from bad to worse.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
The debate regarding what we have and what we want will probably never
culminate. If we actually had a solution to this predicament, India would have been able to evade its internal conflicts. If nothing else, then at least the inconsequential blame game of having insufficient and ineffective terror laws between the UPA and BJP could have been avoided. But all this hardly matters to the people who lost their loved ones in various terrors attacks; all that matters to them is that their lives are in jeopardy!Eight blasts in Bangalore followed by 19 in Ahmedabad killed 52 people and left over 100 injured in all. And if Surat’s 21 bombs were not defused in time, the total number of explosions within the country would have easily crossed the ‘glorifying’ figure of 48 within just 2 days time. But, the irony lies in the fact that even in these tough times, political parties are busy playing what they are best at – politics. While the UPA states that the existing National Security Act, 1980, which is the law of preventive detention and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, which has made provisions to penalise unlawful activities and check the menace of organisations funding terrorists, are effective enough, the BJP disagrees. But, in fact, the bigger debate today is on the revival of Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which was repealed by the UPA government in 2004. “We need to revive POTA. In existing laws like UAPA, important components are missing, even getting bail is comparatively easy,” Former Law Minister Arun Jaitley told B&E.
POTA has nine essential features: Definition of ‘terrorism’, making funding of terrorism an offence, provision for confiscating money and assets earned as profits of terrorism, interception of communication between terrorists, ban on terrorist outfits, stringent bail provisions and protection of witnesses and constitution of special courts to try out offences. Moreover, under POTA, a person, if found guilty, could be detained for up to 180 days without any court filing.
Even law enforcement agencies are allowed to ‘withhold the identities of witnesses and treat a confession made to the police as an admission of guilt.’ Under the regular Indian law, one can deny such confessions in the court, but not under this Act. If the government figures are to be believed, in just a span of two years (between 2002-04) over 4,000 people were booked under this Act, out of which some 800 were arrested and subsequently jailed. Today, around 32 organisations including SIMI and LTTE are banned.
But things seemed to have changed from the time POTA has got repealed. Today, the situation is such that even state organised crime laws seem more stringent than terrorism laws. Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), 1999 defines a terrorist act in a far better manner than even POTA. Where POTA did not take note of organised crime, MCOCA not only mentions that but also includes `promotion of insurgency’ as a terrorist act. Furthermore, under POTA, proving a person guilty depended upon prosecution, while under MCOCA a person is presumed guilty unless proved innocent. Another difference is that MCOCA does not stipulate prosecution of police officers found guilty of its misuse, whereas POTA did. All these were probably the reasons as to why L. K. Advani demanded the implementation of the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime Bill (GUJCOC), which is awaiting clearance from the centre.
If we take the instance of the US, all terrorist activities have been largely contained after the implementation of Patriot Act post- 9/11. Clearly, there can be no alternative to stringent terror laws, since the law and order situation in India is only going from bad to worse.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
Read these article :-
ZEE BUSINESS BEST B SCHOOL SURVEY
B-schooled in India, Placed Abroad (Print Version)
IIPM in Financial times (Print Version)
IIPM makes business education truly global (Print Version)
The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM)
IIPM Campus
Top Articles on IIPM:-
'This is one of Big B's best performances'
IIPM to come up at Rajarhat
IIPM awards four Bengali novelists
IIPM makes business education truly global-Education-The Times of ...
The Hindu : Education Plus : Honour for IIPM
IIPM ranked No.1 B-School in India, Management News - By ...
IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
Moneycontrol >> News >> Press- News >> IIPM ranked No1 B-School in ...
IIPM ranked No. 1 B-school in India- Zee Business Survey ...
IIPM ranked No1 B-School in India :: Education, Careers ...
The Hindu Business Line : IIPM placements hit a high of over 2000 jobs
Deccan Herald - IIPM ranked as top B-School in India
India eNews - IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
IIPM Delhi - Indian Institute of Planning and Management New Delhi ...domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
1 comment:
http://nsm.org.in/2008/09/24/would-gujcoc-inhibit-the-growth-of-terrorism/
http://nsm.org.in/2008/09/29/pota-production-of-terrorist-act/
Discourse on GUJCOC and POTA
Post a Comment