Amid noisy scenes and a walkout by the Opposition, Lok Sabha tonight passed the bill to amend Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), aimed at preventing its misuse by giving more teeth to the Review Committee.While a section of the Opposition was against the amendment, demanding repeal of POTA itself, AIADMK members opposed it saying it would dilute the anti-terrorism law. As detention of MDMK leader Vaiko under POTA became a focal point of the four-hour debate, the House witnessed a war of words between members of the AIADMK on one side and DMK and MDMK on the other.Even though the bill had first been passed by a voice vote, the AIADMK forced a division, mainly to embarrass Government ally DMK whose leader M. Karunanidhi had been speaking against POTA. A division would clearly reveal if they went with the Government or not. And they did. As the final result came on the electronic voting machine, 257 out of 267 had voted for the bill. The remaining 10 were AIADMK members.AIADMK’s A. Malaichamy tried to justify the arrests made by the Tamil Nadu government under POTA and said empowering the Review Committees — both of the Centre and the states — would undermine the real law. DMK member and Union Minister for Environment T.R. Baalu tried to balance his loyalties to the Government and to his party. He said the Government had wanted to bring a bill to fight terrorism. ‘‘But it should be kept in mind that a law may be handled by a king (a good administrator) or by a tyrant. It should be defined who is a terrorist. Vaiko is not one. Neither is Nedumaran nor Nakkeeran Gopal,’’ he said.Trying to allay all apprehensions, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani assured that the amendment would not dilute the anti-terrorism law. Quoting from the Supreme Court judgment, he said the Government’s stand had been vindicated as it had upheld the constitutional validity of the law.
