Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde today made it clear that the controversial National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) would be set up only after thorough discussions with Chief Ministers who are opposing it.
“Yes, I am going into details. I would like to discuss with the States, with the Chief Ministers. This is a good move but we have to discuss with the Chief Ministers,” he said at a press conference here.
Facing strong opposition from Chief Ministers such as Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha) and J. Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu), the Home Ministry has revised the plan for NCTC, a project initiated by former Home Minister P. Chidambaram.
According to the new plan, NCTC will be kept out of the ambit of the Intelligence Bureau and will be an independent entity directly reporting to the Home Ministry.
Besides, the anti-terror body will conduct operations on its own only if there is an urgency or in rare cases.
An earlier meeting of Chief Ministers had failed to evolve a consensus on NCTC due to which it was pushed to the back-burner. According to the earlier proposal, the Multi-Agency Centre and the operations wing of the Intelligence Bureau were earmarked for NCTC and the Home Ministry had passed an ordinance making the new anti-terror body a nodal organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.