The National Investigation Agency, set up in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks to act as India's first counter terror law enforcement agency, wants more teeth to be able to handle terror cases more effectively and cover all aspects of terror, carried out by a terror group or an individual in India or abroad. Seven years since its inception, the NIA is waiting for the Union home ministry to clear its proposal where it has suggested a string of amendments to the NIA Act.
On November 26, 2008, dreaded Pakistani terrorists stormed the financial capital of the country and carried out a terror siege that claimed hundreds of innocent lives. A month later, the NIA was born on January 1, 2009 when the NIA Bill became a law entrusting upon the agency to probe all scheduled offences.
A list of eight acts largely cover the ambit of the cases that can be probed by the NIA and these include the Atomic Energy Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Anti Hijacking Act.
However, the NIA wants this schedule to be extended and its scope to be widened to be able to ''suo motu'' take up cases in Jammu and Kashmir registered under the Ranbir Penal Code and involving offences of waging war against the country. Since the Indian Penal Code is not applicable in JK, the agency sleuths feel their mandate is limited particularly in a state where terror groups are active and Pakistan is sponsoring militant activities. The NIA has asked the MHA to include RPC sections 121 to 130 that deal with crimes like waging war against the state and others involving circulation of fake Indian currency in its list of scheduled offences.
Apart from this, NIA sleuths told THE WEEK, there are other anomalies in the legal framework in which they work, which also include the absence of any section within the counter terror law to proscribe individuals as terrorists. The NIA Act so far deals with proscribed outfits, which have been banned under the UAPA by the home ministry, and this does not include provisions for banning individuals.
"Even the United Nations has a list of proscribed individuals. So while we want a UN ban on Jaish e Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, we do not have similar provisions under Indian law to proscribe individuals. It has been more than two years since we have sought amendments to the act but the Union home ministry is still mulling over it," said an official. In its proposal to the MHA, the NIA has said that since an individual terrorist has not been defined in the UAPA , it is essential to bring individual activities of a terrorist in the domain of the act to give the law more teeth. Once this is done, the NIA will also be able to attach properties of an individual who is proscribed under the law.
If the proposal sees the light of the day, terrorists like Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar and other Lashkar and Jaish commanders will fall under the list of individuals who are proscribed by India.
However, till then it is only a long wait for the NIA, which feels that terror acts today have lost all state boundaries and recent cases of terror attacks have affected citizens of multiple countries at the same time. So, the NIA also wants its jurisdiction extended to foreign land so that when an ISIS or Lashkar terror strike takes place in any country across the globe where Indians lose their lives, the NIA can register a case here and be able to send a team to that country so that under its ''limited jurisdiction'' it can probe the case with the help of the friendly countries. Such was the case when the FBI not only registered a case but an FBI team visited India after the 26/11 terror strike.
"We must learn from others, and we must move ahead with the times," said an NIA official hoping that the agency is able to reinvent itself as yet another anniversary of the Mumbai attacks draws to a close.
