NEW DELHI: National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan's statement that large funds continue to be available to terrorist groups to finance their nefarious activities amounts to an admission by the United Progressive Alliance Government that it has failed to counter the threat of terrorism.

Saying this here on Thursday, Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy tried to blame the Government's inability to get the better of terrorist groups on the UPA's decision to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). The legislation enacted by the previous government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee could have gone a long way in prosecuting terrorists effectively, Mr. Rudy said.

He was referring to a recent speech by Mr. Narayanan at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy where he dealt with various ways in which terrorist groups were able to get large funds. The narcotics trade, manipulation of the stock market, moving funds via the underground `hawala' operations, counterfeit currency, and even plain bank robbery and kidnapping for large ransoms were mentioned among the ways terrorist outfits were able to finance their operations.

Mr. Rudy said his party had suspected "manipulation" of the stock market that had shown an upward bullish trend since the UPA came to power. "The spiralling Sensex could be a sign of huge foreign funds being pumped in."

He said failure to check the counterfeiting of currency notes — Mr. Rudy mentioned Bangladesh in this connection but omitted Nepal although both countries were named by Mr. Narayanan as places where counterfeiting was being done — was a failure of the Government's intelligence wing dealing with economic offences.

At one point the Prime Minister had said that Pakistan itself was also a victim of terror, but the address by the National Security Adviser was an admission that State sponsoring of terror (implicitly by Pakistan) was continuing, Mr. Rudy said.

Sop to Muslims

The BJP's main point was that POTA was not against any community as the party believed all groups and communities in India were ready to fight terrorism and protect this country from this menace; that the UPA had repealed it as a sop to Muslims hoping for a consolidation of a Muslim vote bank in its favour; and, finally, that POTA was a necessary weapon if terrorism was to be fought.

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