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Mamata joins chorus against Chidambaram's ant-terror hub
The just
approved anti-terror intelligence hub, a brainchild of Home
Minister P. Chidambaram, faces a major stumbling block with West
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee joining her counterparts
from Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Bihar in strongly opposing it.
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Kolkata:
The security of the country is a shared responsibility and the
central government did not pursue any discriminatory attitude
towards the state governments run by other parties, union Home
Minister P. Chidambaram said Saturday here at the inauguration of
the National Security Guard (NSG) hub. West Bengal Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee did not attend the event.
"Internal security is a very complex issue. The security of the
country is a shared responsibility, it is a responsibility that is
shared by the central government and the state governments,"
Chidambaram said at the NSG hub, located about 12 km from the
airport.
"The Constitution of India, which assigns law and order and police
to the state governments, has also assigned the responsibility of
protecting every part of India from external aggression or
internal disturbance under Article 365 of the Constitution,"
Chidambaram noted.
Chidambaram's comment comes a day after Trinamool Congress supremo
and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee joined her
counterparts from Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Bihar in strongly
opposing the just approved counter-terror intelligence hub, a
brainchild of the union minister.
Banerjee has joined J. Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu, Naveen Patnaik
of Odisha and Nitish Kumar of Bihar in raising concerns that the
powers given to the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) would
infringe the federal structure and the rights of state
governments.
The powerful anti-terror agency, which will integrate and analyse
inputs on terror threats in India, derives powers from the
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) that allows the
central government agencies to make arrests or searches in
terror-related cases.
"The founding fathers of the country have made the national
security or internal security a shared responsibility. The
government of India is happy in working with state governments. We
work with state governments of different political parties and we
make no distinction among the political parties," Chidambaram
asserted.
Chidambram stated that the central government has shown no
discrimination in helping some of the most troubled states in
India like Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Bihar -
which face the problem of Maoism.
"The state governments of these states are not ruled by the
Congress party, which I belong to, but as member of central
government I have a responsibility to work with state governments
and give them all the assistance they require so that they can
maintain law and order and quell militancy," he said.
Chidambaram also praised the Trinamool-led state government for
substantially controlling Naxalism (as Maoism is often called in
West Bengal) in the Junglemahal area of the state.
"Working together, I can assure that we can fully put down the
Naxal menace and rid West Bengal of Naxalism. Our approach is the
same to terrorism, insurgency irrespective of nature of the threat
and which government is in office. We work together with the
states," said Chidambaram as he claimed that agencies of the
central and state governments together have considerably improved
the situation in tackling Maoist violence in West Bengal.
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