NEW DELHI, Nov 30:
President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh today stressed the “serious challenge” and “potent threats” of terrorism and cautioned that fight against it did not leave scope for compromising with liberty and freedom.
“In the fight against terror, we cannot compromise on the priceless values of justice, freedom, liberty and equality enshrined in our Constitution,” Mukherjee said in a message at International conference of Jurists on international terrorism.
The President’s message, which was read out, said “Terrorism is a global menace. Rise in incidents of terrorism pose a serious challenge that will define the way we lead our lives in the coming years.
“In the fight against terror, we cannot compromise on the priceless values of justice, freedom, liberty and equality enshrined in our Constitution.”
He said the acumen of jurists can help in building a robust system to tackle acts of terror while upholding democracy, the rule of law and respect of human rights.
The message from the Prime Minister’s office said “terrorism is today one of the most potent threats to international and national security”.
“The Prime Minister has always supported legislations to strengthen the substantive anti-terrorism law in line with the global consensus on the fight against terrorism.
“Prime Minister hopes deliberations from the Conference will help in strengthening and improving the legal obligations in fighting the scourge of terrorism,” the message read.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde also sent a message in which he said “Terrorism is the biggest enemy of humanity and many people across the globe have lost their lives to terrorism.”
He said it was “indeed heartening” to learn that legal luminaries had decided to deliberate on the subject.
The conference was organised by International Council of Jurists, All India Bar Association and the Indian Council of Jurists.
The conference was also addressed by former Supreme Court Judge Justice V S Sirpurkar, M K Sharma and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who said the country is working towards training and better equipping its forces to tackle terrorism.
Hooda, however, stressed that in order to fight terrorism, we must not go “overborad” and should abide by our Constitution principles of justice, freedom, liberty and dignity to which we owe our allegiance and safeguard our human rights.
At the event, national law day award were presented to former Supreme Court Judge Justice M K Sharma, Additional Solicitor General Siddharth Luthra, Additional Solicitor General Mohan Jain and others.
International Jurists Award were presented to Dr Hadef Jawa’an Al Dhaheri, minister of Justice UAE, Justice Y J Yeung, Chief Justice of Mauritius and Dr Tun Shin, Attorney General and cabinet Minister of Myanmar.
In his address, Union Minister Farooq Abdullah said Pakistan’s dream of “grabbing” Kashmir would never be realised.
“They thought that by forcing Hindus out, they would be able to grab Kashmir. This has been their dream for many many years. From this rostrum, I would like to tell their country they will never be able to take Kashmir,” he said.
On cross border terrorism, he said “Jo dusro ke liye kabra khodta hai, wo usme khud gir jata hai (those who dig graves for others, themselves fall in it).”
“Today they are facing the same terrorism that they directed against us…. They terrorised the people hoping that the boundaries will change. They attacked the legislature, they attacked the Indian Parliament. Thank God they were not able to enter. God knows what would have happened.
“But they are still there. Al Qaeda still exists and there are promoters of these agencies and they are state owned,” he said.
Meanwhile, former Chief Justice of India and Chairman of National Human Rights Commission, K G Balakrishnan said that India has not formed any draconian laws in its fight against terrorism unlike many western countries.
“We are proud to say that India does not have drastic draconian laws which curtail the freedom,” he said in his address.
Justice Balakrishnan drew attention on the means to counter-terrorism being adopted by many countries including arbitrary detention.
“Many of the civilised countries pass laws which have arbitrary detention…We had POTA, TADA but they were repealed. If any of the laws are passed in India, they are subject to scrutiny by the higher courts,” he said.
Emphasising that India is the victim of both internal and external terrorism and it is difficult to maintain law and order and human rights principle, the NHRC chief suggested forming new cadre of specially trained and equipped police forces to tackle the menace.
He, however, added, “Question still remains whether we can afford universal human rights norms in times of crisis of exceptional nature.” (PTI)
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