Incidents of terrorism have declined: MoS Home

New Delhi: Stating the Centre has adopted "zero tolerance" towards terrorism, the Government on Tuesday said steps taken by it has resulted in decline in these incidents in the country.

Moving the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019, MoS Home Kishan Reddy said "this government was working against terrorism with zero tolerance."

The minister said between 2004-14, a little over 40 incidents of "interland terrorism" took place. In these incidents, 883 people were killed.

However, from 2014-19,four incidents of interland terrorism took place in which 91 people were killed.

Of these four, three were Pakistan sponsored, he said.

The bill seeks to allow an individual suspected to have terror links to be designated as a 'terrorist'.

Stating that the entire world, including the big nations, were victims of terrorism, the minister said the steps taken by the government has resulted in decline in terrorism.

In order to put a check on terrorism, he said, "we have given a free hand to the security forces" and added that the in the north eastern states in the last five years there has been a decline in the insurgency related incidents.

Due to the sustained effort of the government, the minister said, the situation has improved in the left-wing extremism affected states. The Bill amends the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.

Under the Act, an investigating officer is required to obtain the prior approval of the Director General of Police to seize properties that may be connected with terrorism.

The Bill adds that if the investigation is conducted by an officer of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the approval of the Director General of NIA would be required for seizure of such property.

Under the Act, investigation of cases may be conducted by officers of the rank of Deputy Superintendent or Assistant Commissioner of Police or above.

The Bill additionally empowers the officers of the NIA, of the rank of Inspector or above, to investigate cases.

Participating in the discussion, Manish Tewari (Congress) said in this country false propaganda is being spread that the law was solution to all the problems.

The solution to the problems, he said, was through political initiatives and not strict laws.

Opposing the proposed amendments, Tewari said tough laws were "often misused than used". He also recalled how the demand for diluting POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) was raised by the NDA allies during the Vajpayee regime.