"The Union home ministry is considering a proposal from IIT-Kanpur to set up an 'Internal Security Centre' (ISC) in the country on the pattern of US Department of Homeland Security to protect India from terror attacks."
The too powerful, all pervasive government here is set to become more powerful, with a Soviet style 'Internal Security Centre'. Proposed by a duffer in IIT Kanpur.
Why not just put everybody in jail? That would be costly - building a lot of jails for 1.3 billion and growing. Just make the whole country a big jail.
" The Centre hopes to put in place a security system in which "everybody would know that somebody is observing him", making it impossible for an offender to remain undetected."
What are they going to do? Have 1 billion cameras? Let people 'keep tabs' on their neighbours? Pit family members against each other? It is funny how they call him an 'offender' and not a terrorist. What about the politicians? Would they be tracked too?
Congress is not new to having control of Indian citizens. In 1971 they came up with something called MISA. It was used extensively to arrest and detain anyone who dissented with Indira Gandhi or the Congress Party or the neighbourhood policeman or any bloody fool, without producing them in court. Tens of thousands of 'political prisoners' were tortured to death. Later, they came up with TADA, which was used again. This time, it was used by the state governments more than the central government. Again, tens of thousands were jailed without legal recourse, and most of them were tortured to death. The current act isPOTA (2002). Used extensively, again, against anyone who dared to voice their opinion. It was common by the friendly neighbourhood policeman to pick up someone alive and return them dead. If someone died and the news came out in the newspapers, they were posthumously made 'terrorists trained by Pakistan.'
" The ISC will work as a coordination centre for all security and law enforcing agencies in the country. Besides maintaining a databank of every individual and activities like profession, place of residence, records of foreign visits etc., it will also act as a central body to tackle internal security issues particularly those requiring "scientific, technical and analytical" expertise."
I know what it will be used for - terrorising the common man. Don't like someone's face? Someone did not let you break the queue? Flag his name in the database and let the local thugs, aka policemen, do the dirty job. And, what scientific, technical and analytical expertise? This is a country where the government blocks 'objectionable websites' like yahoogroups.com because it was used by terrorists to communicate with each other. This is the country where the policemen capture 'all involved terrorists' within days, only for the convicts to be released 5 years later because they really had nothing to do with those blasts. This is the country where something like a voters' list is used during riots for targeting the 'opposing forces. - as in 1984, 1991, 2002
"The brain (sic) behind the proposal, Phalguni Gupta said: "The proposal is aimed to act as a deterrent and give security agencies an edge in the fight against terror."
It will definitely give them an edge, in the fight against honest citizens, fight against human rights. Policemen fight tooth and nail against human rights organizations which 'protect terrorists'. If not for the human rights activists, they would be doing an effective job of cleaning the country of terrorists and solving all crimes within a day, with their unique 'investigation techniques'. Why label it torture when it is so effective?
There is even an Anti-Hijacking Act (1984)- could they use it when the Taliban hijacked an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar? Eight days, one death, and the release of some terrorists. Compare it to the incident where a central minister (Mufti Muhammad Sayeed)'s daughter was kidnapped and the government immediately gave up some Kashmiri terrorists.
Don't be surprised if some mandarin reads this blog and it doesn't get updated any more. You know where you can find me. Just tell my parents I loved them very much.
List of ordinances.
