India passes tough anti-terror laws
Updated
India's parliament has voted for tougher anti-terrorism laws including the setting up of an intelligence agency to address security inadequacies exposed by the attacks in Mumbai earlier this month.
The new laws will also double the length of time suspected militants are allowed to be detained without charge.
Presenter: Tony Eastley
Speaker: Sally Sara, South Asia correspondent
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SALLY SARA: Well there have been two bills introduced Tony. One is to set up India's own version of the FBI, a national investigation agency and then the second bill which has gone through is a strengthening of India's anti-terrorism laws so that police have more powers to detain suspects for longer periods of time without laying charges, and also putting the onus of the proof of innocence on the suspect rather than putting the onus of proof on the police, and also increasing the provision so that it would be very difficult for foreign suspects to gain bail.
TONY EASTLEY: With this new agency, is it a direct copy of the American FBI?
SALLY SARA: The kind of crime that the National Investigations Agency would be looking at is things like human trafficking, counterfeiting also terrorism.
The idea behind it is that there is a concern that cases are being looked at on an individual basis and there has been a lack of coordination to be able to follow large crime and terrorism syndicates.
So it is really a way to bring that together and to get the best investigators in the country really working under one roof.
TONY EASTLEY: I imagine there might have been some opposition to that given how independent some of the Indian states have been over the years.
SALLY SARA: There have really been two strains of criticism. Some members of the Opposition were saying that they believed that these anti-terrorism laws should be strengthened further. That they don't go far enough.
Others, the human rights activists, have been concerned that the laws go too far and that they go back to a set of laws known as POTA in India that was introduced in 2002 in a similar way, to counter terrorism, but they were repealed in 2004 because there was concerns that they were being abused.
The ministers (inaudible) were saying today, look, these laws may not be perfect but we need to hurry up and get them through and if there are adjustments that need to be made, let's do that but let's get the legislation through the house.
TONY EASTLEY: Sally Sara how much of this has been driven by perhaps a fear in India that more attacks like Mumbai are possible?
SALLY SARA: There has been an enormous amount of public pressure on the Government to do something. Some people are saying what is needed is better policing and stronger intelligence agencies, not strengthening of the law, that these laws really won't stop an attack like Mumbai happening again.
