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Dr Pravin Togadia, general secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), in an open letter to the new Government of India, has said that repealing of POTA at this stage might attract hundreds of blasts similar to 9/11 and the Spain train-station blasts. He warned the new government that it would be entirely responsible for any future catastrophic incident in the country.
?After 1989, in just one decade, over 10,000 army and police jawans and over 40,000 civilians were killed by the jehadi terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir. Thousands of terrorists were arrested but not a single one was convicted due to absence of sufficient legal provision to deal with terrorism. So much so, that when the Indian Parliament was attacked, the jehadi attackers were convicted only due to POTA. At the time when the whole world is preparing to protect its civilians from jehadi terrorists, the Government of India is trying to repeal the anti-terrorism Act (POTA),? he ridiculed.
According to the letter, John Ashcroft, the Attorney General of USA and Robert Mueller, FBI director, have jointly warned the world about biological, chemical and nuclear terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda in over 60 countries in the next three months. UK USA, Japan, Russia, China and other Asian countries have already begun taking strict measures to crackdown on jehadi terrorists. UK has arrested Islamic cleric, Abu Hamza, recently for preaching jehad and has cancelled his Malawi'scitizenship. The Italian government has begun checking vehicles on the streets to nab suspected jehadis. Japan has raided homes of jehadi suspects. Along with international intelligence reports, even our Army Chief has informed the new Defence Minister that nearly 80 to 100 terrorist training and support camps were still continuing in Pak-occupied Kashmir (PoK), with 3,500 to 4,000 well-trained jehadis ready to enter India.
?With this extraordinary background of worldwide alert, with jehadi threat looming large on the entire world, India by repealing of the POTA, is opening the country to the jehadis and making the country a safe haven for terrorists, when the world is being tough on them. This way the new government is endangering the life of every Indian civilian, the economy, families and national security,? Dr Togadia said in the letter. He has demanded immediate steps to be taken by the government to curtail jehadi activities. (FOC)
