Jammu, October 26
The Jammu and Kashmir Government has decided not to promulgate an ordinance on a fresh anti-terrorism law in the state after it accepted the application of the recent central promulgation of Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO).
Under Article 370 of the Constitution, which gives Jammu and Kashmir a special status within the Indian Union, no Central Act or ordinance could be applicable to the state without the approval of the state Legislature and the government. But in the case of POTO, the Central Government has residual powers under which an Act like POTO could be applicable to Jammu and Kashmir.
Since the state continues to reel under militancy-related violence, the Jammu and Kashmir Government has no plan of raising objections to the direct application of POTO to the sate.
According to the Law Minister, Mr Mushtaq Ahmed Lone: “We had prepared a blueprint for a new anti-terrorist law which had been perused by the state Cabinet members. We have decided to drop its enactment because of certain constitutional compulsions and constraints,” he told TNS today.
Referring to POTO, he said it was a comprehensive anti-terrorist legal measure and “we need not adopt our own law.”
In reply to a question, he said POTO might provide “us” a legal arm against terrorists but it could not help finishing the menace of militancy because all those terrorist outfits operating in Jammu and Kashmir banned under POTO “have never been overground organisation.”
Other experts said outfits like Jash-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harkat-ul Jehadi Islami, Tahrek-i-Furqan, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and JK Islamic League existed in Jammu and Kashmir and the rest, including SIMI, Deedar Anjum and others had no roots in the state.
They said under the proposed anti-terrorist law for which the state government had prepared a blueprint, the punishment proposed was more stringent than shown in POTO. For instance, those involved in the killing of civilians and security personnel could face execution or life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
Those involved in armed strikes in which people suffered injuries the accused could be jailed for three years. The proposed law could have empowered the state to confiscate immovable property used by the militants in harbouring terrorists and in launching attacks on the security forces and civilians.
The experts, however, stated that the application of POTO to Jammu and Kashmir could help the government in containing the activities of militants under the provisions of the new law. At the same time, they forecasted that those militant outfits operating in Jammu and Kashmir which had been banned under POTO could change the nomenclature of their outfits to evade law.
In this context, they referred to the US ban on Harkat-ul-Ansar. Which had been born out of the merger of the Harkat-ul Mujahideen and Harkat-ul Jehadi Islami. After the ban, the two organisations surfaced in their old form.
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