Countering terror
By Gurmeet Kanwal
THE Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) had given its approval to the establishment of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) in mid-January, two years after it was first conceived following the Mumbai terror strike on 26 November 2008. A month later, almost ten chief ministers have expressed strong opposition to the NCTC on the ground that the states were not consulted and that the functioning of the proposed entity will undermine the federal structure of India’s Constitution.
This opposition comes despite the fact that the structure of the NCTC approved by the CCS is a watered down version of the form in which the NCTC had been originally conceived by the Home Minister, Mr P Chidambaram following the Mumbai terror strikes. In an address to officers of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) on 23 December 2009, the Home Minister had envisioned the NCTC as an organisation capable of “preventing a terrorist attack, containing a terrorist attack should one take place, and responding to a terrorist attack by inflicting pain upon the perpetrators.”
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