The Centre is to examine carefully the suggestions made by the Chief Ministers at the day-long conference on the National Counter Terrorism Centre, NCTC held in New Delhi yesterday.
The Home Minister P Chidambaram said, the Centre will look into the concerns of some Chief Ministers on locating NCTC in the Intelligence Bureau, IB and undertaking operations in states by the centre even in exceptional cases.
Addressing a news conference after the meeting, he said, the decision to locate NCTC in the IB was taken on the basis of recommendations of 2001 Group of Ministers.
The Minister said, government has significantly succeeded in neutralizing terrorist modules with the help of different security agencies, though there were some failures too. He said, there is a need for such a body and NCTC can fill the gap to reduce the failure to zero level.
Several non-Congress Chief Ministers raised objections against the National Counter Terrorism Centre in its present form. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said setting up of institutions like NCTC upsets the federal structure of the country.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the well-defined and constitutionally mandated Centre-state relations are being disturbed. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar raised issues related to jurisdiction, accountability and power to investigate saying that these are prone to misuse.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh emphasised the need for a national policy to deal with naxalism and terrorism and said there should be no negotiations in case of a hostage crisis.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa demanded that a Sub-Committee of Chief Ministers be set up to go into the proposed body and till then the proposal should be kept in abeyance.
But, Chief Ministers of Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh supported the Centre on the NCTC issue.
Earlier, Inaugurating the conference, the Prime Minister said, the National Counter Terrorism Centre, is not a State versus Centre issue. Dr. Manmohan Singh said, it is not government's intention to infringe upon States domain.
He admitted that for operationalisation of the NCTC, it is fairly important to have a broad consensus on its powers and functions.
