Editorial
Anti-terrorism law
Have a serious rethink on it
PARLIAMENT on Tuesday passed the Anti-terrorism (Amendment) Bill-2013 into Act through voice vote. The Act will allow the court to accept videos, still photos and audio clips from social media on the Internet as evidence.
Clearly, the present Act supersedes the existing Evidence Act that does not allow for such a kind of material as evidence in a court of law.
Using the law, the police will now be able to eavesdrop on individuals or entities using the Internet and may produce any part of the communications so made as criminal evidence against them in the court.
The law further provides that the police will now be able to instantly start investigation into and file a case against any crime supposed to have been committed under this law.
We are concerned over the possible abuse of the law. Evidently, this law has crossed the critical threshold by which democracy, human and fundamental rights of the citizens may be seriously affected.
The home minister said the new law is in keeping with contemporary UN resolutions on terrorism.
We are not against making the existing anti-terror law time-befitting. But at the same time, we are against any draconian law that may turn into an official instrument to crush any dissenting voice or to infringe on people's democratic rights.
We would, therefore, urge the government to have a serious rethink of the law and change those provisions that run counter to the basic spirit of the constitution which protect the citizens' fundamental and democratic rights.
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