Author: Express news service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: March 7, 2013
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/arun-jaitley-warns-centre-on-hyderab
ad-moves/1084143/0

With the government reviving its efforts to create a National Counter Terrorism Centre in the wake of the Hyderabad blasts, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Wednesday cautioned the government against sloganeering for NCTC after every terror attack.

Jaitley was speaking on the motion of thanks to the President's address after Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury, while moving the motion, suggested that the story of the recent Hyderabad blasts could have been different had NCTC been in place.

"Please don't convert the NCTC into a slogan," Jaitley said. "This country needs capacity building to fight terror. But, law and order is a state subject. The Centre cannot go to Hyderabad and take over law and order situation of Hyderabad city," he said.

"Let the NCTC be an intelligence gathering mechanism, intelligence sharing mechanism, capacity building mechanism for the Centre and the states. You have adequate machinery for investigation of crimes. Your fight against terror has to be one in which the Centre and states work together. And, therefore, instead of being rigid on this proposal, it is much better that we realise the reality that it is a joint effort... Therefore, to start an imaginary or a fictional debate between terrorism and federalism, I think, we will be wasting our energies," Jaitley said.

Speaking at a function later in the evening, Jaitley said a "straight forward way" to resolve the problem of NCTC was to expand the intelligence network. "Creating a new apparatus is not going to much good to the system," he said.

Speaking at the same function, BJD MP Baijayant Panda said that it was wrong to say that regional parties like his was opposed to the idea of NCTC. "We are for aggressive regionalism, for more devolution of powers to the states but not against NCTC. We will support the creation of NCTC but with two caveats. One that any such agency must have Parliamentary oversight, it must be accountable to Parliament, and two that while carrying out operations it must not bypass the state governments," he said.