New Delhi: Faced with the threat of escalation of terror attacks in India post the surgical strikes in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), the union government is trying to revive the controversial national counter terror center (NCTC).
The idea of NCTC was mooted by former Home Minister P Chidambaram after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks but had to be dropped after severe opposition from then Gujarat Chief Minister and now PM Narendra Modi.
As head of parliamentary committee on home affairs, Chidambaram asked Union Home Secretary on Friday if government had any plans to revive NCTC. Sources said the Union Home Secretary was non-committal.
But CNN-News18 has learnt that government has carried out multiple meetings on the issue of NCTC and is wiling to rework the draft proposal to take into account concerns expressed by state governments earlier.
Interestingly, Chidambaram's successor Sushil Kumar Shinde had offered a watered-down version of NCTC, but state CMs lead by Narendra Modi had opposed the very idea of NCTC.
The NCTC as originally envisaged was supposed to be an independent counter-terror body but subsequently it was agreed upon to locate it within the Intelligence Bureau.
The mandate of NCTC was to carry out counter-terror operations and collect, collate and disseminate data on terrorism.
They were also empowered to carry out counter-terror operations and to this state governments objected.
State governments argued that law and order is a state subject and a central body carrying out operations in state would mean attack on federal structure.
The altered proposal from Sushil Kumar shinde said senior-most police officers in all states - the Director Generals of Police and the chiefs of anti-terror squads of all states will be members of the Standing Council of the NCTC. They will be informed before the NCTC conducts an operation in their state.
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