Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

internal security, was lost within a year.
During the first year in office, the UPA
government enjoyed the fruits of the efforts of
the previous government and, as a result, not a
single incident of terrorism occurred outside
How can India be safe under a
government that has no mind of its own,
that speaks in so many voices, and that
is led by a prime minister who has an
office but no authority? It is difficult to
find out who runs this government and
who takes the decisions.
J&K.? But in the last three years the country has
been brought to a pass where the terrorists are
bleeding it with the frequency, place and time of
their choice. There is mushrooming of sleeper
cells and subversive modules of terrorists, both
indigenous and foreign, in different parts of the
country. As a result, every citizen of the country
from Kashmir to Kanyakumari today feels insecure
about his safety.
POTA remained in existence from September
2001 till December 2004. During this period,
only eight incidents of terrorist violence, including
the attack on Parliament and on
Akshardham temple in Gandhingar, took place in
India’s hinterland, leading to 119 deaths. Contrast
it with what happened after POTA was repealed:
The footprint of terrorism has grown alarmingly
larger in the past four years. Jammu, Ayodhya,
Varanasi, Samjhauta Express in Haryana,
Mumbai, Hyderabad, Malegaon, Jaipur, Bangalore,
Ahmedabad, Delhi in the latest attack, serial
blasts rocked Agartala in Tripura just two days
34
ago. During this period, 625 persons have been
killed and 2,011 injured, depicting a five-fold increase
in those killed and injured. It is the same
country, same people, same police and same intelligence
agencies; what then explains this unprecedented
increase? The answer is very simple:
Weak laws have emboldened the terrorists and
appeasement has failed to change their intentions.
Congress cacophony about anti-terror law
Since the serial bomb blasts in New
Delhi on September 13, 2008, people’s pressure
on the government to enact a strong antiterror
law has greatly intensified. But the manner
in which senior leaders of the UPA government
and the Congress party have responded
to this demand is pathetic.
On September 17, Prime Minister Dr.
Manmohan Singh, while addressing the governor’s
conference, said: “We are actively considering legislation
to further strengthen the substantive antiterrorism
law in line with the global consensus on
the fight against terrorism.”
Earlier, The Hindu reported on September
13: “In what is seen as the UPA government
speaking with different voices over the need for
states enacting tough anti-terror laws, the Union
home ministry has not taken kindly to the suggestion
of the National Security Adviser M K
Narayanan favouring the Gujarat government’s
proposal to have its own law to deal with terrorist
activities and organised crime. The NSA’s suggestion
was contained in a letter which he recently
wrote to the home ministry. He reportedly
saw no reason to turn down the request of the
Gujarat government to have an anti-terror law.
He also reportedly cited demands by a number of
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna