NCTC plan back in focus after latest Mumbai blasts
Vishwa Mohan, TNN Jul 22, 2011, 04.30am IST
NEW DELHI: Last week's Mumbai serial blasts has once again brought the home ministry's two-year-old proposal to set up the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) – an umbrella body to deal with terror threats in the country – into focus with the Prime Minister's Office gearing up to finetune it before bringing the grand plan to the Cabinet for approval as early as possible.
Modelled on the American NCTC, the home ministry had prepared a detailed discussion paper comprising the composition and structure of such a centre and sent it to the PMO in April last year.
Under the proposal, the NCTC will be the nodal agency for counter-terrorism in the country with organizations like Intelligence Bureau's Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), Joint Intelligence Committee ( JIC), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), National Security Guard (NSG) and other related agencies reporting to it. The NCTC will also have direct control over National Investigation Agency, the body which was created to probe all terror-related cases post 26/11.
Since the Centre will also have the mandate to look into the issues of insurgency in northeast and Maoist threat, all central armed police forces like CRPF, CISF, BSF, ITBP, SSB and Assam Rifles will also report to it.
Sources said the PMO had already sounded out different ministries – defence, external affairs and finance -- to express their views on the home ministry's proposal. It was important to sort out issues with these ministries before going ahead with the NCTC proposal as a number of agencies which are currently under these ministries would have to report to the Centre.
The home ministry's discussion paper has kept the option of the nodal ministry of this centre open. It has suggested that it could either come directly under the PMO or be placed under the home ministry which deals with internal security matters. The proposal, however, also provides for creating a separate ministry of internal security on the lines of the US department of homeland security.
In US, the NCTC – which was set up within three years of the 9/11 terror attack – comes under the department of homeland security and it has direct control over the anti-terror division of the CIA and the FBI.
An official said, "The proposal for setting up of NCTC is aimed at removing difficulties, which come in the way of dealing with terror-related issues like intelligence gathering and dissemination of information due to multiplicity of authorities."
Once the NCTC is set up, the MAC, which is currently dealing with terror-related intelligence gathering and dissemination through a network of State-MAC, will be subsumed into it. Similarly, the Natgrid – which is being set up to collect and keep a database of all kinds of information – and the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) will also come under the unified anti-terror centre. The CCTNS is a system which links all 14,000 police stations in the country through computerized network with its central server locating in New Delhi.
Under the existing proposal, the anti-terror function of IB will be completely taken over by NCTC which will also have power to get relevant information from even the external intelligence agency RAW, its Aviation Research Centre (ARC) and the military intelligence.
"In that case, director of NCTC will be more powerful than the IB chief. The home ministry's discussion paper talks about appointing a director (senior IPS officer) who will head the centre and he or she will report to either the PM or home minister or minister of internal security, if at all it is set up as a separate ministry," an official said.
The discussion paper of the home ministry says that if government creates a new ministry (internal security), the home ministry will be left with departments like Centre-state relations, disaster management, freedom fighters, official language and administration of Union Territories.
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