Click to play videoGuwahati: The BJP would revive the anti-terrorist law POTA if it returns to power, said senior party leader L K Advani on Friday while visiting Guwahati, which was hit by five bomb blasts yesterday.
"We will put in place a very strong legal framework—revive POTA, revamp the national intelligence structure, besides ensuring that Bangladesh is not used as a base for anti-India activities."
"We want POTA to come back. A very stringent law has to be in place. The present law is not adequate," said Advani, who was in charge of the Home Ministry in the NDA Government.
Advani wanted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explain what steps his Government had taken to check illegal immigration into Assam. "I ask the Prime Minister, who is elected from Assam (to the Rajya Sabha), what has his government done after the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement on the IMDT Act,” he said.
The Illegal Migrants (Determination through Tribunal) Act (IMDT Act) was used in Assam to identify Bangladeshi migrants. The Supreme Court scrapped it in 2005.
Advani claimed that there were 3.5 crore illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the country and asked the Centre to explain if it had asked Bangladesh to take them back.
"I would also like to ask the PM what his response is to the mental state of the people of Assam. How is he going to meet the challenge of the citizens’ sense of insecurity and lack of security?
"Article 355 imposes on the Centre to protect states against external aggression. Has the Government taken a single step to discharge its duties as outlined by the Supreme Court?”
"In the media three organisations—ULFA, Bangladesh-based HuJI and Lashkar have been mentioned as perpetrators of yesterday's blasts. ULFA is invariably mentioned. I do not spare the ULFA," he said.
"I hold two weak governments in New Delhi and Guwahati squarely responsible for the serial blasts."
Advani claimed that neither the Centre nor the Assam government had taken any steps to stop the infiltration from Bangladesh. "It is important that we meet the problem as the menace of the massive influx of infiltrators from neighbouring Bangladesh."
Lawyers at the deputy commissioner's office, near which a bomb exploded on Thursday, heckled the BJP leader when he visited the site. “Advani, go back,” the lawyers shouted.
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