In a move that will give a major boost to India?s fight against terror, the National Investigation Agency, the federal organisation being set up to deal with the scourge, will come into force from the New Year.
?The order constituting the NIA will be issued on Thursday,? union home minister P Chidambaram told a press conference here, hours after President Pratibha Patil gave assent to the NIA bill as also to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, which have now become law. Parliament had passed the two bills in the just concluded session.
The union home minister said the agency would be headed by an officer at the level of director general, who will be named in the next few days. ?NIA will be established to investigate terrorist offences. As and when any case is assigned to NIA, it will take up investigation,? he said. A committee of two judges will go into the merits of the cases to be taken up by the NIA and refer them to the federal agency in a week?s time.
Significant progress had also been made in setting up 20 counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism schools in the country, the minister said, adding that the Multi Agency Centre (MAC) acting as nodal agency on all terror-related intelligence has become operational on a 24×7 basis. He said subsidiaries of MAC have been established in some state capitals and in due course these would be set up in remaining state capitals.
Chidambaram, who replaced Shivraj Patil in the home ministry just a month ago, said a new and mutually beneficial arrangement has been established under which all intelligence agencies share intelligence on a real time basis and are able to make a joint preliminary assessment of the inputs. The union home ministry will now bring a Cabinet note on establishing NSG hubs in four cities, he said, adding that ministry of defence will also bring before the cabinet a note on establishing a Coastal Command. His ministry had also secured sanction to fill vacant posts in the IB on an emergency basis, he said.
Asked on his response to the air strikes by Israelis on Gaza strip and whether UPA government could resort to a similar action, the union home minister maintained that India would not like to draw any lessons from those attacks. He recalled that India had strongly criticised the Israeli strikes and urged the country to stop those attacks on Palestine.