New Delhi:
Even before the Prime Minister could attempt a hardsell of the controversial National Counter Terrorism Centre or NCTC, in a new diluted version, at a chief ministers' meet in the capital today, Gujarat CM Narendra Modi made it clear that it was still not acceptable.
He said neither the PM nor Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had spoken on the contentious anti-terror body yet, but he was bringing it up since it was on the agenda of the meeting. He then slammed the move saying, "Making new institutions destabilizes system."
Later, Mr Modi explained his stand to reporters saying, "I made a very grave allegation today. That they talk of national security but their actions are for political security. The formation of new institutions is to serve this purpose."
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who as Home Minister had conceptualised the NCTC as a crack anti-terror hub with the right to operate, when necessary, without keeping states in the loop, to prevent information leaks, took on Mr Modi almost immediately.
"There is no new-new agency. We are not creating a multiplicity of agencies. We formed the Multi Agency Centre and today Modi himself praises the MAC. We formed the National Investigation Agency...everybody wants the NIA. I deeply regret that some CMs oppose NCTC even in its present form," Mr Chidambaram said.
(Watch)The powers of the NCTC, he pointed, had been modified and warned that, "If even this form of NCTC is opposed, the country will pay a price."
The government has re-diagrammed the NCTC after unequivocal criticism by many state governments. The new draft proposal says that the NCTC will carry out anti-terror operations, if any, "through or in conjunction with the state police."
Also, an earlier plan to subsume the Special Operations Group - a team of crack National Security Guard commandos trained to carry out anti-terror operations - has been shelved.
The NCTC will no longer be under the Intelligence Bureau (IB), as was proposed earlier. It will, however, have the powers to seek information from all state and central agencies and maintain records of terrorists and other suspects, including their associates and family members. In a way, it will end up doing what the IB or the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) do now.
The NCTC will also coordinate and collect intelligence and "pursue leads so as to identify and detect the terrorist or terrorist groups." The new-look NCTC is, in fact, more an extension of the multi-agency centre or MAC, a conglomeration of investigative and intelligence agencies tasked to gather, collate and disseminate information to end-users like the state police organisations. CMs opposed to the NCTC are expected to ask at today meetings why it is needed at all when it will duplicate so much of what other central agencies already do.
Among those who have vehemently opposed the Centre's move to set up the NCTC as being against the federal structure are the chief ministers of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, Mamata Banerjee and J Jayalalithaa, both of who are not attending today's meet.
Ms Jayalalithaa stayed away saying the periodic meetings were a "ritual...to rubber stamp the Centre's decisions." Mr Modi echoed her in calling the CM's meet a ritual and added, "the government is constantly weakening the federal structure. All states work together with the centre but the attitude of Big Brother adopted by government is not good."