By IANS,
New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday sought President Pratibha Patil’s immediate assent to the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (GUJCOC) Bill, 2003, to curb terrorism in the party-ruled state.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani, who represents the Gandhinagar constituency of Gujarat, led a delegation of 12 BJP MPs from the state and met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his Parliament House office.
“We the MPs of Gujarat request your good offices to facilitate getting the assent of the president of India to GUJCOC and accord approval for other security measures,” they said in a memorandum submitted to the prime minister.
The delegation included former central ministers Kashiram Rana and Harin Pathak.
The memorandum stated: “The government of Gujarat is alive to the requirements of security both for the state and also in the national perspective.
“The state government has taken definite steps to strengthen security network, particularly in the border regions and on important installations of the central and state governments.”
It said: “There have also been terrorist attacks in the past, which have however been prevented in the recent past because of constant vigilance by the state.”
The bill, drafted on the lines of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), has been criticised for allegedly draconian provisions that could violate human rights.