ATS terror

The editorial in the latest issue of Organiser titled “Fables from ATS” says: “Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) has all the powers. Maharashtra is the only state armed with such ‘draconian’ right to excesses on citizens under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). It is safe because it is under the UPA. It is doing [what] that the UPA wants it to do. It is above the law of the land, it need not take the normal legal procedures, it can even violate the fundamental rights, human dignity, religious rights and sensibilities because it is fighting terror, about which the entire nation is concerned, and no nationalist in the country wants any leniency”

It adds: “The nationalists have always cried for a bullet for bullet in the fight against terrorism. We have been pleading for more stringent laws to fight terror, after the repeal of POTA, because ordinary legal process is time consuming and often the culprits go scot-free. Ordinary laws have proved unequal to the task terror outfits with world-wide network pose. That is why the Gujarat government which was in the forefront and most successful in fighting terror wanted to enact the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (GUJCOC) 2003. It is in the lines of MCOCA. But after keeping it pending for five years, the Centre refused permission terming it draconian and as dangerous as POTA... The UPA double-standard is so scandalously explicit, brazen and partisan. See how the ATS is feeding stories, everyday, on Malegaon blast probe as if that was the only terror attack that happened in the country or that is the only one under investigation. Crazy? Funny? Or deeply sinister and vicious?”

... contd.