After the shocking Mumbai terror strikes, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened an all-party meeting on Sunday
NEW DELHI: After the shocking Mumbai terror strikes, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened an all-party meeting on Sunday in an apparent move to evolve a consensus on a tougher anti-terror law and a federal agency.
The refrain in the Congress and some of its allies is that there was an urgent need for a unanimity among political parties to take terrorism head-on through appropriate laws and structures.
Singh had already emphasised the immediate need to set up a Federal Investigation Agency to go after terrorist crimes like the one in Mumbai and ensure that the guilty are brought to book.
The Prime Minister had asserted that "the strongest possible measures" would be taken in the fight against terror including the use of the National Security Act (NSA).
While the NSA would be invoked to deal with situations of this kind, the existing laws would be tightened to ensure that there were no loopholes available to terrorists to escape the clutches of the law, he had said.
The meeting has come at a time when the Opposition was targeting the Congress-led coalition at the Centre for not being serious about tackling terror.
"The government's non-serious approach is reinforced by reports that the Mumbai attackers arrived in the city by the sea route," Senior BJP leader L K Advani has said as his party has gone to town attacking the Congress for being "soft" on terror.
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has also stressed on the need to strengthen the federal structure of the country and developing some joint mechanism by states and the Centre to tackle terrorism.
"After 9/11, no such terrorist attack took place in the USA even after seven years. We need to take lessons from them," he said.
Asserting that there is an exigency to bring reforms in the country's federal structure, Paswan said, "Here states pass the buck on to the Centre whenever a terrorist strike happens while they strongly object to any interference by the Centre in law and order issues."
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held a meeting with the chiefs of defence services and intelligence agencies on Saturday to discuss the unprecedented attacks and ways to prevent such recurrences.
Prior to this, Home Minister Shivraj Patil also held a meeting with top officials of various forces and agencies, in which a decision was taken to step up security measures along the coastline.
The all-party meeting is being held a day after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) would discuss the issue threadbare.
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