NCTC: Congress gives terror plan a quiet burial

With home minister Sushilkumar Shinde saying that the government will not bring a Bill on the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) in Parliament it is almost certain that it is curtains on P Chidambaram’s proposal for an integrated counter-terrorism centre. The main reason cited for not pursuing the NCTC idea is that there has been vehement opposition to the centre from various chief ministers. What seems to have turned the tide against the move was the opposition from Congress chief ministers. The June 5 chief minister’s meeting on internal security highlighted one crucial aspect that when it comes to matters regarding internal security there is no cohesion between the Centre and states. The Mumbai 26/11 attacks and the many other attacks that followed exposed, beyond doubt, the gaping holes in India’s security network. With the May 25 Maoist attack still fresh in the mind it was hoped that states, looking beyond federalist confines, would come together to address some of the pressing internal security problems India is facing today.
Law and order is a state subject and state governments fear that the proposed NCTC will compromise the existing structure and give the Centre superseding powers tampering the current autonomy they enjoy. The National Intelligence Grid (NatGRID), meant for gathering intelligence from various sources, was opposed for privacy violations and safety of information. Even the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), which was praised by Shinde at the June 5 meeting, hasn’t been fully operational. The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) is yet to take off. More than a dozen chief ministers expressed their reservations and even after the government proposed a watered-down NCTC, after agreeing to keep it out of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and curtailing its power to make arrests, there seems to be not many takers. These also included Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and recently elected Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah.
In the territorial wrangles between different states and the Centre, the point politicians miss is that the extremist forces, both within and outside the country, do not factor state boundaries —they use it to their advantage, and make the most of a dithering government. For any tangible progress to be made, a co-ordinated approach is required in which all states are equal stakeholders. The Centre and states should come together and form a comprehensive plan to tackle terror. The communion between agencies will have to be in tandem with more intelligence gathering at the ground level. Even for a proposal like the NCTC to make a difference, there is a need for getting more forces that can gather information at the ground level and hawk-eyed surveillance wherever possible. Unless such progress is made, for which greater political will is required from all parties, the government will still fail to protect its citizens.