Everytime there's a terror attack in one of the Indian cities one can hear a cacaphony of voices asking for stringent anti-terror laws. This is particularly true about members from the BJP that keep arguing that POTA should be brought back. How serious is this allegation? Does our country need a draconian law like POTA to maintain law and order? Here's some more information.
POTA which stands for Prevention of Terrorism Act was passed in 2002 prior to which there was POTO which stood for Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance. This act was brought into force after the attacks on our Parliament in Dec 2001. It defined terrorism and many human rights advocates would argue that the definition infringed on the freedom of speech at times. Anybody arrested under this act could be kept in police custody for a period of 180 days without having been produced in front of a judge/magistrate for a remand. The confession extracted from an accused can also be used a evidence in a court of law. POTA by it's very nature assumed that anyone arrested under it was 'guilty' and had to be proved 'innocent' by way of evidence when the case came up for hearing.
As per the Indian constitution and other criminal laws a person is 'innocent' unless proven 'guilty', this was a vital new change in POTA. Most states in India implemented this law except Lalu's Bihar and some other states. The states that used this act to the maximum were Jharkhand, Gujarat and Tamilnadu. The irony in Gujarat was that the muslims who were arrested under allegations of torching the railway coach at Godhra were charged under POTA. The riots that followed saw large scale massacres of Muslims by Hindu hardliners and the folks arrested during these riots were charged under normal criminal laws, the CM of the state said POTA was not necessary. This selective imposition of the law was seen as partial and used as per the convenience in a particular case.
POTA also was a potent weapon in the hands of zealous law enforcement agencies. A law which was meant to handle the globally witnessed phenemenon of terrorism was being used to harrass and heckle innocent citizens many at times. In Tamilnadu V.Gopalaswamy (Vaiko) was arrested by the then CM J.Jayalalitha for making speeches in support of the LTTE. He languished in jail for about 4+ months before being formally charged by the police. Such was the vigorous nature of the act and it's ramifications when used by politicians to settle political scores. The UPA government repealed this act in 2004 and rightly so, it should have followed up with modifications to the CRPC with the definitions of terrorism, terrorist to accomodate the changing global scenario but that is still in the offing.
TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities prevention act) was in force between 1985 and 1995 and was brought primarily to tackle terrorism in Punjab. This act didn't have clear definitions for terrorism and hence was misused widely because of which it was repealed in 1995.
The answer to a terror strike is not in getting draconian laws. It's in more efficient intelligence gathering, it's in sifting through volumes of gathered data and extracting meaningful information out of it. It's more about states taking complete responsibility for law and order and effective policing, it's not about blaming the central government for everything. Law and Order has always been a state subject and not a federal subject. For the sake of all the lives lost till now someone has to drive the point pretty clearly in our leaders today that the last thing they should play politics with is a human tragedy like a terror strike!
