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Coimbatore/New Delhi: As the national Capital suffered the burns of serial bomb blasts the old debate on having tougher law to counter terrorist activities renewed again. On the one side Congress-ruled UPA government today apparently rejected the need to have any stringent law to deal with the reoccurring terrorist activities, the Opposition Bhartiya Janata Party again raked-up to bring back stiffer and potent law like POTA.
On the BJP's demand for enactment of a tougher law to tackle terrorism, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Coimbatore that there was no dearth of laws to tackle terrorism in India. But the question was its proper implementation along with utilisation of enforcements and inputs from intelligence agencies. He said that the country had laws like TADA and POTA and even then terror activities had been taking place.
Reacting to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's claim that he had alerted the Centre to the bomb attacks on Delhi, Mukherjee said "it is not the time to pass the buck to each other. It is time for all of us to join and fight against terrorism."
However, voicing in different tunes, Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit advocated for "tougher laws" to deal with the grievous situation. "I have no role in police or security management of the city. (But) I am voicing concerns of people that a tougher law which is a deterrent (should be there). We need tough laws to tackle the activities of anti-social aliments," she said.
Though Congress spokesman Abhishek Singvi senced the arguments as political in nature and suggested that the time was to rise above petty political games and to get out of the "stereotype of anti-terror law or no anti-terror law." | 
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