Is POTA becoming TADA?

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), under Justice J.S. Verma, had steadfastly opposed the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota), which had become the law of the land ever since it was pushed through a joint session of Parliament last March. Justice A.S. Anand, its new chairperson, had observed there were enough safeguards under the law to prevent its misuse. Yet, the NHRC has now been constrained to take suo motu cognisance of a report that revealed the arrest in Jharkhand of a 12-year-old boy and an 81-year-old man under Pota — they were among some 200 people arrested under the Act for allegedly ‘‘supporting naxalites’’. Almost simultaneously, the Gujarat government has also thought it fit to book all 121 accused in the Godhra case under this Act.

This mass application of the Act recalls the untenable and arbitrary manner in which the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) was wielded by the executive in the eighties and nineties. By the time TADA was withdrawn in 1995 — after a concerted campaign against its misuse — over 77,000 people had personally experienced its horrors. Therefore, a year after Pota became law, it’s as good an occasion as any to raise familiar concerns over its boundless capacity for abuse. Many who had spearheaded a campaign against the misuse of TADA are, ironically enough, the very ones who are today passionately justifying Pota on the grounds that rising international terrorism demands such a law. In actual practice, terrorism is best fought — not by arbitrarily locking up a vast group of suspects — but through better policing and meticulous follow up measures. The recent deportations from Dubai is only one instance of the efficacy of the latter approach.

Governments in power, however, simply adore their instruments of persecution. The Opposition may huff and puff as much as it pleases over the misuse of Pota but its exertions are unlikely to force a rethink on the Act at the highest levels of power. As for the question, is Pota becoming another TADA, the answer is self-evident: of course it is. And Indian democracy is the poorer for it.