Nitish, Patnaik, Jaya write to PM against NCTC

The clamour against the proposed anti-terror hub continued Monday with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar writing to Prime Minister Manmonhan Singh expressing his opposition while his Odisha and Tamil Nadu counterparts Naveen Patnaik and Jayalalithaa sent second letters seeking dialogue between the two sides.

In his letter, Nitish Kumar said the creation of National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) was highly flawed as it had been created within the Intelligence Bureau, which has no accountability to parliament.

“Where is the need to create new centres like NCTC with provisions which arbitrarily trample upon existing constitutional safeguards to protect the highly delicate balance of power between the centre and states” he asked.

Underlining chief ministers of several states opposed the unilateral decision of the home ministry to create NCTC without consulting the state governments, he said: “Won’t you agree with the suggestion that the Indian government must re-examine the whole issue and ensure that the order (is) suitably modified to take care of states’ genuine concerns.

In his letter, Patnaik contended that he had no intention of politicising the campaign against terror and his opposition to the manner in which the anti-terror intelligence hub was being set up.

He urged the prime minister to initiate dialogue with states on the anti-terror intelligence hub.

Jayalalithaa also urged Manmohan Singh to withdraw the home ministry’s order on the setting up of anti-terror hub and start consultation process with the states.

In her letter to the prime minister, the text of which was released to the media, she said: “I also request you to start the consultation process with the states immediately keeping in view the fact that matters of public order and police are in the State List of the Constitution of India.”

Referring to her earlier letter dated Feb 17, she said the disturbing provisions of the home ministry’s order need in-depth analysis and consultations with all the states.

Apart from the three, the move to set up NCTC has also been opposed by chief ministers of West Bengal, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Tripura.

Following the opposition from chief ministers, the Congress-led central government has said that the NCTC proposal did not talk about making amendments in any existing law but would derive powers from the anti-terror legislations already passed by Parliament.