Swamy urges govt. to come up with new laws to fight terrorism

Reacting to the report of 150 Indians being on the radar of intelligence agencies for actively following the ISIS propaganda and engaging on social media with pro-IS elements, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday suggested the government to make new laws in order to counter terrorism.

"We need a new law on how to deal with terrorism which we had before TADA which the Congress got it removed. We have to make examples of these people. Ultimately, we have to go the source which is in Syria and Iraq," Swamy told ANI.

"We must form an alliance of Israel, America and India. The other alliance that we should form would be a military alliance in terms of creating a common opinion and that is India, China and Iran," he added.

Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, commonly known as TADA, was an anti-terrorism law which was in force between 1985 and 1995 (modified in 1987) under the background of Punjab insurgency and was applied to India. It came into effect on 23 May 1985.

According to sources, a majority of those under surveillance are from the southern states.

The BJP leader said that this was because of the special background of the southern states, and also because of the lack of money, thus tempting them to get recruited to the ISIS.

"Each state has a special background, Hyderabad because of the Owasis recently and the older Rajakar's movement. Secondly, the Muslim League has always been very aggressive in Kerala. In Karnataka, the fanatic followers of Tipu Sultan are there and Tamil Nadu because of the parties like AIDMK and DMK encourage the LTTE and the Naxalities. So, they have a natural tendency because the ISIS has lot of money and these people in south are short of money. So easily they become recruits. We can control it by making it tough and don't get carried away," he said.

In order to combat the threat of the ISIS, intelligence agencies are tracking social media accounts of nearly 150 Indians following ISIS propaganda as per the government.

According to the report of intelligence agencies, around 150 Indian youth are under the surveillance of security agencies for allegedly supporting or promoting ISIS ideology.