New Delhi:
Home Minister P Chidambaram has hoped that the row over setting up of a National Counter Terrorism Centre or NCTC will be resolved at the Home Secretary meeting scheduled to take place on March 9.
"The Home Ministry has called for meeting of top state police officers and I hope the meet with Home Secretary will allay fears of states," Mr Chidambaram said.
Union Home Secretary has invited Chief Secretaries and Home Commissioners of all states along with the DGPs and heads of anti-terror organisations for the meeting, to "discuss in detail the scope and functions of the NCTC", according to the sources in the Home Ministry.
Under attack from non-Congress Chief Ministers, government had put on hold the launching of the NCTC scheduled for March 1 and the anti-terror body may take shape only after the meeting.
The appointments of the Director and three joint Directors of NCTC were also put on hold after Home Minister P Chidambaram wrote a letter to 10 Chief Ministers where he assured that the "next steps" on NCTC will be taken only after the meeting of DGPs.
The state governments have been lining up every day against the Home Minister's pet project with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee being the most vocal opponent. Non-Congress Chief Ministers like Jayalalithaa and Naveen Patnaik have written to the Prime Minister with ferocious critiques of the NCTC. They say the new counter-terror agency would trespass into state turf, and therefore violates the country's federal structure.
Mr Patnaik succeeded in rallying around every chief minister of a non-Congress government together; they said the powers being given to the NCTC encroached upon the rights of states to handle law and order.
On Tuesday last, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had written to the chief ministers, assuring them that the Centre was committed to protecting the principles of federalism. He said the NCTC was located within the Intelligence Bureau which "coordinates counter-terrorism efforts throughout the country. It was for this reason, he said, that the NCTC had been located within the IB and not as a separate organisation."