The INDIAN WHIRLPOOL- and the WAY OUT!

Seems like India is getting sucked in its whirlpool of religious and political contradictions. Again the same clamor for a Draconian anti Terror Law in some states, do we need these?

Do we need a law like POTA or TADA to tackle terror?
I think its the answer is not just a YES or NO. I do not subscribe to BJP's view that we just need a draconian Law to somehow get rid of Terrorism like a magic wand, and neither do i subscribe to the congress (read so called secular) view that we should not make a tougher law just because laws as such do not deter terror attacks.

We need Judicial Reforms, Police Reforms and some fine tuning of the existing laws, and if all this comes in a package in some acronym like TADA or POTA, i do not mind that.

Judicial Reforms:
1. We need to speed up justice delivery mechanisms. The common man on the street is frustrated of the delays, and the system is so outdated and slow as well as spineless that most of the times, people tend to take help from the fast track parallel justice system set up by Naxals or self styled mafiosi of a particular area.
2. Get some sort of plea bargaining thing to some of the crimes, we can not keep on filling jails which already have a poor infrastructure with pick pockets and eve teasers while we show no spine to prosecute the high flying among us.
3. what have we done to the BMW Case, the Ketan Parekh case, the fact that we couldn't convict a Sheik Omar or a Maulana Masood Azhar is testimony to the fact that the judiciary has been not up to the mark and has not shown spine when needed. We need to make sure the conviction rate goes up. Justice delayed is justice denied and we also end up paying a high moral price for the lapses.
4.Use more IT in courts and police stations, allow videoconferencing where required in sessions. There can be a whole book on these but basically bottom line is deliver justice in time without prejudice.

Police Reforms:
1. Get the police off the tentacles of the political overlords, for GODS SAKE no reform will help a set up which is used by the political class as slaves for every possible dirty clean up job possible.
2. Get a fixed tenure for these hapless police men, they may be corrupt, inefficient, bla bla, but the bottom line is they are underpaid, overused and the first line of defence, we need to get them the best equipment, increase moral standards, pay them better, have fixed duty hours.
3. Use IT again, India is a IT powerhouse, Barack Obama promises in election manifestos that he will try to keep Indian techies out, by blocking visas, USA is scared of our techies soft power, and we in India do not have a national criminal database, we don't mind if US embassy asks us to give prints if all our fingers, but balk at the idea that our own security agencies might want some form of ID to know who we are?
4. We need to urgently stop creating so called "Encounter Specialists",i again would like to stress here that i do admit that these people have been heroic, at least in the eyes of the society, but we can not go about creating Frankensteins, these people however selfless and heroic, actually represent the weakness and spinelessness of the Indian legislature, we are admitting that WE CAN NOT GET CONVICTIONS IN COURT, and hence we would resort to extra judicial killings. For God's sake, fix the system not the men.

Executive Law like POTA/TADA:

1. We do need an overhaul of existing laws, we still go by the British established system, we need to change those or fine tune, this debate shouldn't be just about an anti Terror law, it should encompass all aspects with some laws targeting terror or being applicable specifically to terror related cases.
2.We need to move form the "circumstantial evidence" way to the "forensic and technical evidence" way. We need to allow phone calls tapped, sms messages, computer disks, video recordings as evidence in court of law. We need to allow tougher remands and serum tests when we find that the probability to get evidence is slimmer.Involve more technology and allow more types of evidence is the bottom line, just circumstantial evidence is not enough always.
3.Does something called witness protection programme exist in India?If it does where is it? What kind of protection does one get? In most cases, the witness tires out or is not in a situation to remember even the chain of events by the time the case comes up for hearing. we need to sort this mess out by framing a good witness protection programme.

Only when all the above aspects are taken care of can we think of any formidable frame work to stop or at least make terrorism a costly risk for the perpetrators.

Bottom line: A single Draconian Terror Law is NO NO, a complete reform package YES!YES!