The Home Minister said when POTA was repealed, some relevant chapters in it were transferred into the Unlawful Activities Prevention Law, "lock, stock and barrel".

The chapters have provisions useful to control terrorist activities, free flow of funds to the terrorist groups and relating to the admissibility of certain kinds of evidence collected with the help of electronic equipment, the Home Minister said.

He said there were provisions in POTA which went against the basic principles of criminal jurisprudence relating to the onus of proof and admissibility of the confessions, not made according to the principles adopted in the Criminal Procedure Code.

"It is not possible to have a law like POTA on the statute book. The relevant provisions in POTA, needed to control terrorism, have been introduced and retained in the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act," he said.

Anguished over the tardy utilisation of central funds by state governments for police modernisation, Patil said if funds remain unutilised, the purpose of strengthening the forces cannot be fulfilled.

Noting that the police-population ratio in the country was "not very comfortable", he said there were many vacancies in the police which have remained unfilled for many years. "If the number of vacancies is around one lakh, we need to take immediate actions to fill them," the Union Home Minister said.

Advocating cooperation between the states and their forces to control terrorism, Patil said each State can have a nodal officer, who can deal with his counterparts in other states.

Asking the states to strengthen the intelligence gathering mechanism, the Home Minister said the best weapon, which can be used to counter terrorism, is intelligence.

... contd.