The BJP today termed the recommendations of the Administartive Reforms Commission (ARC) on terror an eye wash, adding that the methods suggested by the ARC were impractical and done for effect.
BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley said that the basic suggestion of the ARC, that terror suspects be arrested and kept under preventive detention under the National Security Act was untenable, since the NSA was a preventive law not a punitive one.
"The NSA only accomplishes preventive detention for a year, there is no provision for trial and prosecution or judgement. Thus the measure suggested is only to foster a perception that the UPA or the Congress was interested in becoming tough on terror," he said.
"To combat terror one needs a punitive law which can also act as a deterrent, to merely increase the preventive detention or utting provisons of POTA into the NSA will not work," he said.
"The government appears to realise that it is under pressure as far as internal security is concerned," he added.
Jaitely also said that the idea of a federal agency mooted by the ARC was not a new one, but something that the UPA government kept suggesting everytime there was a call to become tough on terror.
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"The question to ask hear would be what kind of crime would this federal agency investigative and under what law. For a federal agency to fulfill its mandate a federal law is also needed. Clearly these measures are being proposed without due consideration," he said.
"The ARC and Veerappa Moily are completely out of their depth with regard to this issue," he said.