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| Are Omar's reservations on NCTC justified ? | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 22: The State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has joined the bandwagon with some other allies of the UPA over the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) proposed by the union home ministry.
Omar Abdullah has acted with wisdom saying that he would not comment in the public on a sensitive matter like the NCTC unless there were detailed deliberations on the issue between the state and the central government.
Other allies of the UPA like Mamta Bannerjee have also voiced the same feelings.
Since the formation of the NCTC concerns some sensitive issues pertaining to the federal structure of the union, better sense has prevailed on the centre which has put the matter on hold.
Although the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has made it clear that the proposed NCTC would not be an independent organization, but just an arm of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), yet in the absence of a consensus on the national issue, the NCTC would remain bogged down in state-centre controversies and not be able to effectively deliver on the objective of its constitution unless the fears of the states are reasonably allayed.
Law and order is a subject common between the centre and the states, but essentially it is a state subject as per the constitution of the country. The forefathers of our constitution had envisaged a supervisory/supportive role for the centre to the states in matters of law and order. States of the union as per the forefathers of the country's constitution should be mature and powerful enough to deal with their own problems of maintaining order.
Terrorism is a phenomenon which is relatively recent to the World and although India has been its victim for many decades now, the subject needs very tactful and delicate handling. Religion, ethnicity, social and economic disparities are the breeding grounds of terrorism. It is, therefore, imperative for states with pronounced ethnic and religious realities like J&K to watch out carefully before throwing doors open to federal arms. The fears of the states notwithstanding, the need for a powerful federal strong arm to hammer down the scourge of terrorism cannot be over emphasized.
There are inter state implications of terrorism which cannot be logically and legally dealt with unless we have an overarching arm to nail down the menace. Yet the experience of the country with the National Investigating Agency (NIA) has left everything to be desired. The NIA has miserably failed in coming up to the expectations of the nation. The fears and doubts expressed by the states at the time of the NIA formation were more or less on the same lines as are being expressed by the states now over the NCTC issue. How would matters of overlapping between the CBI and the NIA be reasonably addressed? This question was answered by the centre by maintaining that the NIA would come into play only where cases of national importance and international ramifications needed to be investigated. This is what the CBI has exactly been doing for the last many decades!
Instead of issuing statements on the fringe that the fears of the states on the proposed NCTC are ill-founded, it is always better to take the states on board before the matter is finally decided. Omar Abdullah cannot be denied his right to be convinced before he makes up his mind on this issue of national importance. |
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