NIA & UAPA
Written on 9:21 AM by nitesh
Government of India after the attacks on Mumbai have acted like never before in passing the two laws namely setting up of a National Intelligence Agency and Unlawful Activities Prevention Amendment Act in a matter of 2 weeks. I feel this must be the fastest a law has been made.
First of all what would be the functions of NIA:
• NIA is first of all will not be under the jurisdiction of State governments, It can take charge of terror activities without the consent of state concerned. CBI had to take permissions of the state government to act. So In short if will be like the Homeland security if we go to USA.
• NIA can set up special fast track courts for speedy trials.
(still searching for more functions.......)
UAPA:
• It denies bail to foreigners accused in terror cases e.g Kasav like people can be detained for longer duration.
• Bails to Indians will be granted only after courts hear the case.
• Another provision is if a person is found with explosives the onus will be on him to prove his innocence.
• Another important feature will be that the duration of the custody or remand is increased from 15 days to 30 days.
But again the questions arises setting up an law is not enough we need officers and money for new instruments. CBI, IB and CID are already short staffed. What is done nowadays in case of states is if any police officer is creating trouble for a VIP he is transferred to CID. This is not the right way we need right persons for the right job.
CBI is having shortage of 1/3rd of its staff, they say good applicants are hard to find by. Where are the funds to buy latest forensic equipments, to teach them about the cyber crime, to teach them about the new un conventional way used by terrorists?
We are trying to tackle the terror attacks by land, air and sea but what about attacks from cyber space. If we are attacked on a big scale say like websites of many banks getting hacked are we prepared for such attack.
Another issues is of budgeting FBI has a budget of around 7.1 billion dollars and on the contrary expenditure by central government on policing is just 3 billion dollars.
Strict terror laws are not the only way through which we can control terror. Though I agree that there was a need for the centralized agency to tackle menace like terror, but these laws should not go the way POTA and TADA went. Major causalities during these laws were the common men, they were caught by the police beaten, tortured to accept that they are terrorists.
Many students in Hyderabad were arrested, tortured and finally they were released by court after 6 months, but they lost their jobs and college admissions meanwhile.
Point is laws should not be misused. If we can control terror in Punjab we can control it everywhere, what is needed is will , free hand to the police officers, no more vote bank politics like removing the ban on SIMI.
We will get to know in few months whether this law and agency is helpful or its a just another notional agency with only name and without any members.
Posted in
Mumbai Attacks,
NIA
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