New Delhi: Supporting the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Wednesday urged the Centre to consider inclusion of more scheduled offences in the Bill.
Speaking on behalf of the party in the Lower House, BJD Parliamentary Party leader Pinaki Misra said that the party has always stood by the government in the fight against terrorism. He said there are many scheduled offences which should be included in the Bill.
“The government has done a good job in making it as expansive as possible, but there are many more scheduled offences like espionage, money laundering, drug trafficking, organised crime, hijacking, assassination, assassination attempts on political leaders, crimes relating to radio-active and poisonous substances, bio-terrorism, narco-terrorism and others. I think all these should be included in the ambit and many more such crimes should be considered for inclusion,” Misra said.
He also said that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) should be equipped to work better with institutions like the Intelligence Bureau, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the DRI, institutions relating to money laundering, PMLA, etc.
“All these institutions need to coordinate very well in order to ensure that investigating and intelligence gathering is quickened in order to ensure that they are equipped to prevent rather than merely prosecute,” Misra said.
The Puri MP urged the government to reduce time period for the NIA to file charge-sheets from 180 days to 90 days.
Speaking on the disproportionate incarceration of a particular segment, the BJD parliamentarian said there is no question that minorities, predominantly the Muslim community, the Dalits and tribals, constitute 53 per cent of the prison population while they are only 39 per cent of the actual population.
“This is a problem. The problem according to me is not because of selective targeting. The problem really is because they are economically and socially underprivileged. So, it is not as if the minorities alone are being targeted but there is no doubt that, in order to ensure that minorities, Dalits and tribals do not continue to suffer incarceration needlessly, we need to ensure that the prosecutorial system becomes more sensitive,” Misra stated.