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Advani seeks Pratibha’s assent for Gujarat Bill

Special Correspondent

L.K. Advani

AHMEDABAD: The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, L.K. Advani, on Sunday blamed the Centre’s “soft attitude” for the terrorist attacks in the country.

He also urged President Pratibha Patil to immediately give assent to the Gujarat Bill on organised crime to deal effectively with the perpetrators of the Saturday’s serial blasts in Ahmedabad.

Mr. Advani, who represents Gandhinagar constituency in the State, reached here from Delhi and was closeted with Chief Minister Narendra Modi and senior police and administrative officials to review the situation. He was accompanied by the BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley.

Later, he visited some of the blast-hit areas in the city, particularly the trauma centre of the Government Civil Hospital, where a doctor-couple treating the injured brought from other blast-hit areas were among the 23 killed.

Mr. Advani told journalists that the terror attacks could not be merely dealt with post-incident investigations as the existing common laws under the Evidence Act were found to be inadequate to deal effectively with the terrorists. Even the United Nations Security Council had advised all the countries to enact special harsh laws to deal with global terrorism and accordingly the BJP-led NDA government had enacted the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

But unfortunately, the first thing the UPA government did after coming to power was to revoke POTA. Stressing the need for a “zero tolerance” to terrorist activities, Mr. Advani said the Centre’s “soft attitude” towards the terrorists was not helping the situation in the country. He said he had discussed the matter several times with the Centre and even after the Ahmedabad blasts he had told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that if the Centre was not ready to re-introduce a legislation like POTA, it should allow the States to have their own harsh measures to deal with such a situation.

He said Gujarat adopted a similar legislation to deal with organised crimes like terrorist activities, but the Bill had been pending before the President for assent for the last four years.

Though the Bill was not as effective as POTA, “I still urge the President to give her assent to the Gujarat Bill immediately to enable the State police to deal with the situation,” he said.

Mr. Advani said the Centre’s “soft attitude” in dealing with terrorist activities was reflected in the way it was handling the Afzal Guru case. The death sentence handed down by the Supreme Court for leading the attack on Parliament had still not been executed. “The Centre must show a much stronger resolve and zero tolerance against all terror activities,” he said.

On fears that the terrorists were targeting the BJP-ruled States, Mr. Advani said the attacks were not against any State or a party, but against India.About the need for a federal agency under the Centre to investigate all terror activities across the country, Mr. Advani said it was a debatable issue and had been discussed in the past several times.

But many States were reluctant to accept the proposal thinking that it could cut into their powers.

“There was need to persuade the States to arrive at a consensus,” he said. But this was not the time to discuss such issues when “traumatised people need reassurance from the State and the Central administration.

“Shocking”

Terror activities were not covered by the archaic laws, Mr. Advani said. There was also a new pattern in terror attacks in targeting places like hospitals.. “It is very shocking and condemnable.”

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