Prasannarajan opines, in India Today, that POTA shouldn’t have been repealed, perhaps. Abi takes strong objection to his arguments:

Why is it, Mr. Prasannarajan, that you don’t acknowledge the real reasons behind the repeal of POTA? Why should your wet dreams about how POTA will make India safe take precedence over the horrible reality of how it actually functioned? What, in other words, makes you so sure that POTA is what India needs?

Finally, aren’t you being such a demagogue when you equate opposition to POTA to a concern for ‘fundamental rights of terrorists’?

Where is your concern, Mr. Prasannarajan, for the fundamental rights of what all our national pledge calls ‘my brothers and sisters’– all Indians?

The debate on MISA, NSA, TADA, POTA has always seemed a little academic to me. 6 agitating Gujjars were shot down today: you’d have thought there’d have been a review of the pacifying methods employed after 16 were shot down yesterday. Do the rulers really need those draconian laws? Aren’t they managing to be draconian enough without them?