Consensus needed on terrorism centre, says Shinde

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde Tuesday said there was need for a consensus on setting up a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) but his ministry did not have plans to move the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on the issue.

Shinde said that the government has to think about the opposition to the proposal to set up NCTC from some non-Congress chief ministers.

"We will have to go for a consensus. The states and centre have to work collectively," he said.

He said that the government had accepted the demands concerning the NCTC.

"First, there was objection that it should not be under the Intelligence Bureau (IB). We took it out. They also said its operationalisation should not be under the IB, that also we did," he said.

"We tried to have a central intelligence agency but they said a multi-agency centre is already there. That is also a central agency," Shinde said.

The home minister said that seeing the resistance to the NCTC, the government had first decided to take the chief ministers' opinion and then approach the CCS.

"Accordingly, they were given the drafts (at the meeting of chief ministers). There is still opposition. After examination, we will decide whether to take it to the CCS or not. As of now, there is no proposal to taking it (NCTC) to the CCS," he said.