Govt soft on terror, say Opposition, NCP

New Delhi (PTI) - Joined by United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the
Opposition Thursday charged the Indian government with being
"soft" towards terrorism and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
accused it of playing to "vote-bank" politics and questioned
India's engagement with Pakistan.
Participating in a discussion in the Rajya Sabha (upper
house of Indian parliament) on the growing incidents of terror
with special reference to recent western Indian city Mumbai
serial blasts, BJP leader Arun Jaitley launched a scathing
attack on the handling of these attacks and said mandarins in
the Ministry of External Affairs "feel helpless" while dealing
with countries which are the epicentres of terrorism.
Suggesting that the fight against terror should be
extended to its foreign policy, he said "does India have the
will to use a foreign policy initiative to fight terror? In
the absence of any other alternative of how to deal with
Pakistan, the government has been advocating engagement with
them....,we lack the political will to take all necessary
steps to fight terror."
"Every time a government decides to fight terror, it is
told that it is either anti-minority or against human
rights...national security will have to prevail over vote-bank
politics," Jaitley said.
Toeing the Opposition line, NCP member Yogendra P
Trivedi said "we are probably too soft in handling terrorism.
Killers and terrorists should not feel India is too soft on
them".
Trivedi said it is the primary duty of the state to
protect its citizens. Giving an example of a ship lying
abandoned off the Mumbai coast, he wondered "how a ship could
come all the way to Versova coast without anyone knowing about
it?"
Jaitley said "while the government engages with
Pakistan, it must be conscious of the fact that until Pakistan
alters its present course, the outcome of the talks could
hardly lead to a positive result".
"Unquestionably, Pakistan is the epicentre of terror. It
uses terrorism as an instrument of state policy. There is
hardly a major global terror strike which does not have a
Pakistani connection," he said.
"Even China and the US now experience this," he added.
Blaming failure of intelligence for recent terror
attacks in Mumbai and other places, Jaitley said the country
needs an intelligence system both within and outside since a
lot of terror in India emanates from across the border.
Referring to the judgement of the Indian Supreme Court
for striking down the deployment Special Police Officers
(SPOs) in anti-Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh, Jaitely said
"SPOs have done an excellent job in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab,
North East and Chhattishgarh. In one go, the Supreme Court has
deleted the institution as unconstitutional. The judgement has
raised several issues."
He said such a judgment indicates that courts enforced
the ideology of the authors of the judgement rather than the
Constitution.
"Judges cannot fight terror. It is the responsibility
of the government to do so. I find the principle of separation
of powers....has been violated by this judgement. I would
expect this government to respond to this," he said.
The opposition leader said the government should bring
forward a policy to combat terrorism in coordination with the
state.