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India to soften Anti-Terrorists.
(Updates with Rao meeting chief ministers, para 2; states' reactions,
paras 4-6)
By Nelson Graves
NEW DELHI, May 5 (Reuter) - India's government, keen to improve its
human-rights image and court Moslem voters, met state leaders on Friday to
discuss softening an anti-terrorist law critics say has kept thousands of
innocent people in jail.
Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Home Minister Shankarrao Chavan met
state chief ministers to review the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act
(TADA), which permits police to keep people in jail without charges or trial.
Newspapers said the government was considering cutting the maximum period
of detention to six months from one year and scrapping a provision permitting
arrest for possession of arms.
During the four-hour meeting, the states were split over whether to
repeal TADA. Eight chief ministers, including two from states ruled by Rao's
Congress Party, argued the act should be scrapped, United News of India said.
``Torture, state terrorism and violation of human rights are alien to our
culture and where they exist, are a blot on our democracy,'' the interior
minister from Rao's home state of Andhra Pradesh, P. Indra Reddy, was quoted
as saying.
But at least nine states, including Maharashtra where many TADA arrests
have been made, said the law was needed.
The government's readiness to tone down TADA dovetails with its apparent
efforts to address human-rights abuses in Kashmir.
United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Jose Ayalo Lasso was in the
Indian capital on Friday after visits this week to Kashmir and Punjab, where
a bloody separatist revolt spurred enactment of TADA 10 years ago.
Lasso was the highest-ranking U.N. official to visit Kashmir since a
secessionist rebellion in which more than 20,000 people have died broke out
in 1990. He is due to meet Rao on Saturday before returning to Geneva.
Indian troops have been accused of widespread human-rights abuses in
Kashmir, including summary executions and rape.
A senior diplomat said Lasso was impressed by New Delhi's willingness to
ease TADA and allow him to see Kashmiri rebels. ``He was pleasantly surprised
by the government's transparency and assurances TADA will be changed,'' the
diplomat said.
In another sign of New Delhi's softening stance, Kashmiri separatist
leaders met Pakistani President Farooq Leghari in the Indian capital on
Thursday.
The unprecedented meeting on Indian soil took place after a summit of the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and before Leghari
returned to Islamabad.
TADA, first enacted to help authorities put down the Punjab revolt and
since extended to all but three of India's 26 states, has become a thorn in
the government's side.
The law will lapse if not renewed by May 23.
More than 65,000 people have been arrested under TADA. Only a fraction of
those arrested have been charged and fewer than one person in 100 has been
convicted.
The law has provided the muscle for a crackdown after bombings in Bombay
in 1992 killed 260 people. At present, nearly 200 people, mostly Moslems, are
on trial in connection with the blasts but many more have been detained.
The government's eagerness to change TADA has a strong political
compulsion. Rao's ruling Congress Party is eager to win back Moslem voters
who say the law has singled them out and who deserted the party in droves in
recent state elections.
REUTER
Transmitted: 95-05-05 11:28:10 EDT
