Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Monday pitched for his toned-down version of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) in Parliament, insisting that there was a need to quickly put it in place.
Shinde — who informed Parliament about the bomb blast outside BJP office in Bengaluru — also said that the home ministry was working on a explosives tracking system.
Shinde, who called for tighter checks on explosives, said states needed to strengthen their intelligence establishment but lamented they hadn’t acted so far.
“We have been advising the states on this but we have not seen much progress,” he said. On his part, the minister said the home ministry was trying to strengthen the human intelligence component at the central level. “That will start yielding results,” he added.
The original version of the NCTC gave the central agency powers to arrest, raid and seizure in any part of the country, a power that runs contrary to the constitutional division of power between the centre and the states.
Shinde agreed to breathe life into the NCTC after the Hyderabad blasts but struck down plans to give these powers. Instead, it would primarily be a body to collate inputs and analyse the available information. “We have now a revised formulation of NCTC which takes care of the objections of the states,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Shinde agreed to breathe life into the NCTC after the Hyderabad blasts but struck down plans to give these powers. Instead, it would primarily be a body to collate inputs and analyse the available information. “We have now a revised formulation of NCTC which takes care of the objections of the states,” he said.
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