Need NCTC to fight terror: PC

There are a significant number of instances where states did not act against terrorists and Maoists because their security agencies either did not have the capability or because the decision-making process took too long, home minister P Chidambaram said on Saturday. Aloke Tikku reports.

There are a significant number of instances where states did not act against terrorists and Maoists because their security agencies either did not have the capability or because the decision-making process took too long, home minister P Chidambaram said on Saturday.

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In a last-ditch effort to drum up support for the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Chidambaram on Saturday acknowledged the failures of the security establishment.

Recalling his speech at the chief ministers’ conference on internal security last month, when he announced that 21 terror modules had been neutralised and one-half of the cases cracked through the joint efforts of Central agencies and state police agencies, he said, “Today, I wish to share with you the other side of the picture.”

“There are cases where, despite inputs regarding the presence of terrorists, the security agencies concerned did not act either due to lack of capacity or lack of a timely decision,” he said. “Most of these cases concerned so-called ‘jihadi’ terrorists and cadres of the CPI (Maoist).”

However, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi questioned this logic, citing the central government’s contradictory response to the 2008 Batla House encounter and the 2006 Mumbai train attacks.

“This is the same union government that puts pressure on the investigating agency to stop its search-and-seizure operations in the aftermath of the Mumbai train attacks of 2006 -due to perceived political compulsions,” Modi said.

In an oblique reference to Congress leaders treating the Indian Mujahideen members killed in the Batla House encounter as innocent persons, Modi said if the central government was unable to properly identify and recognise the enemy, “how does it propose to conduct a decisive war against it?”