While the Bharatiya Janata Party is sticking to it demand for a revival of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, party General Secretary Arun Jaitley was quite frank in admitting on Friday that "POTA per se cannot stop terrorism" since it is useful only after an incident to investigate, arrest and bring the perpetrators to justice.
In an informal chat with reporters at the BJP headquarters in Delhi, he said the latest terror attack in Mumbai shows that every part of India has now become "vulnerable" and what now needed is a new kind of intelligence and security network that countries like Israel have developed to handle terrorism.
"There is no use calling an all-party meeting to discuss the Mumbai attack as all that emerges from such meetings is political parties spelling out their respective stand and nothing more while what is urgently needed is solid action to prevent more such attacks," Jaitley said.
Stating he was not a security expert, Jaitley said he can certainly say that India lacks the technical and manpower expertise to tackle terrorism and prevent Mumbai type attacks in future. India has come on the radar of the terrorists and the urgency is to adopt the kind of fight-back plan evolved by the United States after the 9/11 attack, he added.