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Centre wants say in law-and-order matters

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The government is seriously thinking of putting law and order, a state subject, on the Concurrent List. This follows the circulation of provocative cassettes of Maulana Masood Azhar instigating Muslim youths to take up arms against the government on the issue of Kashmir, top government sources said.

"International terrorist Masood Azhar's audio cassettes exhorting Muslim youths to take up arms against the government have surfaced in various parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Kerala. The situation is grim and if it is to be contained and reversed, law and order, a state subject, will have to figure in the Concurrent List," top home ministry officials told rediff.com

They referred to media reports of Home Secretary Kamal Pandey summoning top officials from the states to constitute a committee to decide on the matter because the states "have failed to contain the grave anti-national activities being carried out under their noses".

They said the government had arrived at the conclusion that "an extraordinary situation needs extraordinary measures" and so moves are afoot at the highest quarters "to remove the cancer of anti-national activities through constitutional surgery".

They also referred to moves to set up a "federal police", on the lines of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States, that will work without "opposition and interference" from the states.

Admitting that thorny Centre-state ties, which have often resulted in acrimonious squabbles, are an obstacle, the officials said the states had strongly opposed central moves to impinge on their powers, especially those relating to law and order. "But the time has come to save the country from certain ruination. Hence the government wants to put a decisive stop to such activities," they said.

The alarm bells began ringing when Azhar's incendiary cassettes began circulating rapidly in sensitive pockets of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Government sleuths reported that "the same network" which had first sent the cassettes to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh was distributing them.

The officials confirmed that Inter-Services Intelligence operatives are behind the distribution of the cassettes in these states and the government had conclusive evidence about their links with forces across the border. They did not elaborate, since divulging further information could hinder investigations.

The officials also scoffed at media reports that the presence of Azhar's cassettes in Uttar Pradesh had been denied by the local police. "You can disregard such reports because our strategy is to give a long rope to these ISI operatives before we nail them," they said.

A religious leader from Bhagalpur, Bihar, who enjoys political patronage in the state, is believed to be deeply involved in these subversive activities. His role has been documented by government sleuths for the past three years and the officials said they had sufficient proof that he was a "conduit" for the circulation of Azhar's cassettes in various parts of the state.

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