The Hindu : MDMK pleads Vaiko's case with PM

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 21, 2003

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National

MDMK pleads Vaiko's case with PM

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI Aug. 20. The presidium chairman of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), L. Ganesan, and the former Union Minister, Gingee Ramachandran, today met the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and submitted a memorandum seeking early review of Vaiko's arrest under POTA by the Justice A.B. Saharya Committee.

The two are understood to have pleaded with Mr. Vajpayee the case of Mr. Vaiko and urged the Centre to bring an amendment to Sec. 21 of POTA (under which he was arrested on July 11, 2002) in such a way that holding political meetings and extending verbal support to a terrorist organisation would not attract the offence of encouraging support to a banned outfit.

The memorandum, which is a copy of the one signed by 301 MPs — 240 from the Lok Sabha and 41 from the Rajya Sabha — and submitted to Justice Saharya last week, points out that "to accuse Mr. Vaiko as one supporting terrorism on the ground of his verbal support for Eelam Tamils is far-fetched and politically motivated".

It said: "Verbal support will never constitute an offence. His speech has never abetted anyone to indulge in terrorism and therefore his alleged speech does not attract POTA".

It was in this context that the two leaders sought the Prime Minister's intervention. Pointing out to Mr. Vajpayee that at present no timeframe had been specified for disposal of the cases by the POTA Review Committee, they also wanted the Government to fix a time limit for the Committee to dispose of the complaints and submit its report to the Centre.

Committee lacks facilities

Meanwhile, the Committee which also includes M.U. Rehman, IAS (retd), former Secretary to the Government, and Arvind S. Inamdar, IPS (retd.), former Adviser to the Uttar Pradesh Governor, functioning from Vigyan Bhawan is yet to get infrastructure, secretarial staff and required number of halls and room for the staff members.

According to the committee sources, a police officer in the rank of Inspector General was sanctioned four weeks ago and he was expected to assume charge. But he was yet to take charge and there was also no indication of any replacement for him.

The committee has sent communication to the Editors of newspapers as well as to journalists in the visual media asking them to share necessary information available with them and to give suggestions to ensure that shortcomings, if any, in the implementation of the POTA were removed.

Views and suggestions could be sent by email to potacommittee@nic.in or by post to the Justice Saharya Review Committee, Room No. 246 Vigyan Bhawan Annexe, New Delhi, on or before September 8.

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