The Centre today convened a high-level meeting on March 9 on the NCTC hoping it will find a way forward on the controversial issue but fresh road-blocks appeared with Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik opposing the conference of top state officials. Addressing a press conference,Home Minister P Chidambaram said the Home Secretary had convened a meeting of chief secretaries,directors general of police,chiefs of state Anti-Terror Squads to allay the apprehensions on the counter-terror body. "I am confident that this meeting will find a way forward. My note is self explanatory. I think the note should,I believe,have allayed many of the apprehensions including apprehensions of a section of the media and therefore let us hope that the meeting convened by the Home Secretary will find a way forward," he said. Asked whether he would be conducting a similar exercise by meeting Chief Ministers of various states,he said this would depend upon the meeting that is being convened. "All I said in my letter is that before we take the next step I have asked the Home Secretary to call a meeting.so let's wait for the meeting," he said. Patnaik,who spearheaded protests by over a dozen Chief Ministers on the issue of setting up of National Counter Terrorism Centre on the ground that it would erode states' powers,today wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh opposing the government calling the meeting of top state officials. "I am disappointed to find,Sir,that a meeting has been called by the Union Home Secretary with state directors general of police (DGPs)," Patnaik wrote to the Prime Minister.
