NEW DELHI, India –– A rare Parliament joint session, the third since India's independence, voted after a daylong debate Tuesday to pass an anti-terrorism will that the opposition said will curtail civil rights.
"I think the ayes have it," P.M. Sayeed, deputy speaker of Parliament's lower house, said after both sides shouted their voice votes. He then granted the opposition's request to count paper ballots and the total was 425-296, with 60 of the 781 parliament members absent or abstaining.
The government said the legislation, which gives it greater powers to detain and try terror suspects, is crucial after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States and a Dec. 13 militant attack on India's Parliament.
fter the Parliament vote, the bill was expected to be signed into law by India's constitutional figurehead, President Kocheril Narayanan.
The Prevention of Terrorism bill allows police to detain suspects for questioning for three months without bringing charges against them, and an additional three months with approval from a special court. The bill also says that anyone suspected of giving money, shelter, transportation or other support to terrorists could be tried on terrorism charges. The legislation provides punishments ranging from a minimum five years in prison to death.
"We cannot score a decisive victory against terrorism unless a special law of this kind is enacted," Lal Krishna Advani, the powerful interior minister, said as he presented the bill. The government says the law will be effective against Islamic guerrillas fighting to separate Kashmir from India.
The opposition said the law would be used against innocent Muslims. Opposition parties said the proposed law gives unbridled power to police. They fear that people who unwittingly rent a room or car to a suspected terrorist or engage in a financial transaction with them could be detained for up to six months without trial.
"The proposed legislation is unacceptable because it violates the basic right of the individual," retorted main opposition leader Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress party. "This government has revealed its true intentions by using every device to arm itself with the menacing powers of" the Prevention of Terrorism bill.
"The real victims of this legislation will not be the die-hard terrorists, because you catch hold of them anyway, but the political detractors and ordinary people, especially the minorities," said a communist leader, Somnath Chatterjee.
After more than nine hours of debate, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee responded to what he said were Gandhi's personal attacks on him and allegations that he was under pressure from Hindu extremists.
Shouting his defense amid cries of support from his own party and derision from the opposition benches, Vajpayee said his government's testing of nuclear weapons and support from the United States in the global battle against terrorism were proof that he does not act under pressure. "I am pained because our intentions are being questioned," Vajpayee said. "This is an assault on my personality and I won't tolerate it."
He made no comments about why his government needs the new law. The government has said the legislation has built-in safeguards to prevent human rights abuses.
The legislation was passed by the Lok Sabha, where the government has a majority. But the upper house, dominated by Congress, rejected it. A bill must pass both houses before it goes to the president.
To break the deadlock, Vajpayee called the joint session, where his alliance of parties has a comfortable majority.
Since December, the government has enforced the law as a presidential ordinance.
Advani, the interior minister, said 69 arrests had been made under the ordinance, more than 50 of them in Jammu-Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority state, where militants have been fighting since 1989 for independence or merger with Pakistan.
The two previous joint sessions of the Indian Parliament were held in 1961 and 1978.