NEW DELHI, 27 October — A new anti-terrorism law is unlikely to fetch parliamentary approval next month as the opposition has pledged to vote against the measure due to its “draconian” provisions.
Opposition leaders yesterday said they would block the Prevention of Terrorism Bill from being passed in parliament also because they feared the government would “misuse” it to target religious minorities, especially Muslims.
“This law would become a tool in the government’s hand to persecute minority organizations,” Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) member of parliament P. Hannan Mollah said.
Added Communist Party of India (CPI) Secretary D. Raja: “The government wants extraordinary powers for itself to misuse them for its own political ends.” The main opposition Congress party has already announced its opposition to the anti-terrorism law. Congress spokesman S. Jaipal Reddy said the proposed law would be a “fraud” on the Indian Constitution.
The opposition’s bid to vote against the draft bill means it would be defeated in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, where the government is in a minority. But the government is still hoping that it would bring the opposition around by then.
The proposed law, which would run along the lines of an anti-terrorism ordinance promulgated on Wednesday, would give extraordinary powers to the police and state administration to arrest, detain and prosecute suspected terrorists. The proposed law, some feel, could target organizations such as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a youth outfit that the government banned last month leading to scores of arrests throughout the country.
Officials say the new law would not be as stringent as the earlier Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) that lapsed without renewal in 1995 following widespread condemnation. But some feel it could still lead to rights abuses.
Rights activists and liberals had roundly condemned TADA because it turned around conventional jurisprudence and placed the onus of proof on the accused and not on the prosecutor. TADA also allowed judges to accept confessions made before police officials that is not permitted in routine criminal jurisprudence.
Although Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan did not give details of the new law while briefing reporters about it this week, the opposition parties are apprehensive that the new law could be tougher than even TADA.
While TADA was enacted in 1987 mostly to fight violent secessionism in Punjab, Mollah pointed out that its use spread to other states, recalling that Gujarat used it to detain a large number of suspects although it never faced terrorism.
“Ultimately this anti-terrorist law would fail to eradicate terrorism but become a tool in the government’s hand to settle scores with minorities,” he said. Added CPI’s Raja: “Terrorism is a political problem. The government should look for political solutions and not resort to brute state power.”
But the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the ruling coalition, dismissed the opposition fears, saying the law would aim to fight violent insurgency in Kashmir and the northeast, and would “not target religious minorities.”
“The government wants to root out terrorism as it is threatening to destroy the fabric of the nation,” BJP leader J.P. Mathur said. “This law is not against any religious group but against cross-border terrorism.”
He pointed out that the two dozen militant outfits banned following the new ordinance included not just Muslim organizations but also terrorist groups operating in the country’s northeast that largely include non-Muslims. While Mathur agreed that the law could be misused, he said that should not deter the government from bringing it forward. “The fear of misuse is no reason to avoid writing a law that is absolutely essential to fight terrorism.”
