BJP demands tough laws to fight terrorism

Ahmedabad, Nov 29 (UNI) The BJP today said the country needed tough laws and a strong political will to fight terrorism and curb the rise of anti-national activities in the country.

The party's national spokesman Prakash Javadekar, who is camping here for the assembly elections, told reporters that ''India needs tough laws to fight terrorism and if the Congress has some problem with POTA, it could have enacted a separate law to deal with terrorirsts. But, its failure to enact any law has sent a wrong signal and made the country a soft target for terrorists.'' Mr Javadekar further said, ''Such a law works as a deterrent over ground supporters of the terrorists. It also demoralises them and all people connected to such activities.'' Criticising the Congress stand and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent statement that 'India wants zero tolerence on violation of Human Rights', the BJP leader said such things were demoralising the Indian armed forces and security agencies and encouraging terrorists and people having nexus with them.

Citing examples of serial blasts in the recent past in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Varanasi, Lucknow, Faizabad, Ayodhya, Ludhiana, Ajmer and Hyderabad and other places, he alleged that the Congress was guilty of allowing terrorists to grow and spread beyond Jammu and Kashmir to every nook and corner of the country. In fact, over 170 districts of the country were under the grip of one or another kind of terror, he said.

The recent inteference of the Congress in the investigations of such cases sounded like it wanted ''some reservation'' for nabbing the culprits if they belonged to a particular religion or community, he said.

The worst failure of the Congress regime was that it had failed to nab a single terrorist involved in any of the attacks in the last three years, he added.

UNI