Advani warns against terrorist attacks

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 5. The Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, today warned that threats of terrorist strikes using ``small nuclear bombs'' and other ``chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction'' can ``no longer be taken lightly''. The country needs to be prepared to handle such emergencies while sensitising the people about the danger. There were lessons to be learnt from the terrorist strikes in the United States.

He was addressing a day-long meeting on internal security attended by the Chief Secretaries and the Directors- General of Police, during which presentations were made on scenarios relating to biological and chemical weapon attacks.

Mr. Advani said Pakistan's proxy war against India was bound to fail ``although it could continue to inflict some wounds on us''.

The Home Ministry's immediate answer to tackling internal security problems, especially terrorism, is tougher laws and yet another Central law enforcement agency to investigate ``federal crime''. There was need for new legislation to deal effectively with terrorism and organised crime (the pointer was to a new law to replace the TADA), he said, exhorting the officials to accept a new central law enforcing agency. Although it was not said so, the idea was to create a sort of an Indian version of America's FBI. The suggestion was that crimes related to terrorism, counterfeit currency, hijacking and attacks on sensitive installations should be brought under federal crime.

The security forces and the people had to ``raise their levels of commitment'' to root out terrorism, Mr. Advani suggested even as he lamented the lack of such unity at home. The Media and the Opposition had the right to oppose in a democracy, but a ``perpetually adversarial stance becomes negative''.

It was a familiar theme that has been repeated several times by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been pointing out that the American media and the Opposition were completely united in the face of the attack on September 11, which was not the case in India.

The meeting discussed the need to eliminate the chances of forged identity documentation such as passports, driving licences, ration cards and so on even as it was admitted that touts abound and must be finished.

The CBI was not enough, it was overburdened, and in any case its primary responsibility was to investigate corruption, the Home Secretary, Mr. Kamal Pandey, said, justifying the proposal for a new agency.

He admitted that there was no green signal politically and that some States might be wary of allowing a central agency to interfere in law and order, entirely a state matter. But clearly the Centre is hoping to use the atmosphere and hysteria created by the strikes in the U.S. to push through its agenda.

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