Face of Nation : Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammed head Maulana Masood Azhar are amongst top names to be proscribed as “terrorist” under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act 2019 after the new amendment comes into effect. Top Home Ministry sources told India Today TV that government’s focus is on terrorists, who constantly launch attacks on India from Pakistani soil. The Modi government’s first priority is to proscribe those individuals as “terrorist” who have managed to evade clutches of the India law, they said.
“Even though a proscribing individual as terrorists is just a legal norm, but the government felt it was necessitated after Beijing asked New Delhi whether the Indian government had branded Maulana Masood Azhar as a proscribed terrorist?” G Kishan Reddy, Minister of State for Home Affairs, told the parliament while introducing the bill.
“This at a time when China kept blocking India’s move to declare Maulana Masood Azhar as a terrorist in the United Nation but lastly gave in under US pressure,” the MoS Home told the House. The UAPA amendment bill entitles NIA to proscribe an individual as terrorist within the country or outside it.
Home Minister Amit Shah has said the anti-terror law was essential to keep law enforcement agencies one step ahead of terrorists. Responding to a debate on the bill, Amit Shah also asserted that anti-terror laws would not be misused and would be used only to root out terrorism.
But while many in Opposition voiced concern regarding the new “draconian” provision, officials in Ministry of Home Affairs said, “there were enough checks and balances”. Individual’s proscription to be declared as “terrorist” will happen only after approval from Union Home Minister.
Individual so designated as a terrorist will have the right to appeal to the Union home secretary. The home secretary will have to dispose-off the appeal in a 45 days period. Further, a review committee headed by a retired high court judge, with at least two secretaries to Government of India as members, can be approached against the home secretary’s decision.
India is also likely to share the list of individuals proscribed as terrorists with foreign governments. It is likely to be done on the basis of reciprocity just as the Indian government seeks similar details from the foreign governments.
