Book of Integration Council New - Ministry of Home Affairs

you don’t like POTA, call it anything else, but again all the people and the parties could
get together and find out a way, making a law, which does not create any problem for
any community. After 9/11, America, I think, has made a very strong law, more stringent
than POTA. But there is no talk outside. Both the parties worked together, sat together
and made law which if you go from the human rights point of view is unacceptable, but
nobody talks about that, nobody criticizes that and what has happened after 9/11 till
today. In USA, no terrorist has been able to function there. Why can’t we think of
such thing in the interest of nation, not think of community, not think of caste. This is
one suggestion I have to make.
As regard Uttarakhand, Sir, our state is a peaceful state. We don’t have communal
problems, we also have very limited problems relating to caste and other things, and by
and large the state is peaceful. We all live in harmony. But we have other type of
problems which eventually also result in problems with regard to security. We have a
national border with China about 300 KMs and in the 300 KMs we have disputed
territory, at Barahoti. We have a border about 275 KMs with Nepal which is free and
open border and due to the type of political activity that had been going on in Nepal
in last few years, we have been having problems. And therefore, we need to tackle this
security aspect because willy-nilly or in some form it might lead to activity similar to
terrorism. Therefore, I have been requesting Central Government about assistance to
be extended to the State. Like Shri Badal said, I am also requesting that our police
force needs to be strengthened. It needs to be modernized and we have sent a
proposal and I am thankful to you, the Hon’ble Home Minister, that he has given
patient hearing to that. But I do hope that it also gets converted to some cash so that
we can really enforce and create an environment of security in our State, because as I
said it is a peaceful State, let it not get into a State where it also becomes Naxalite
prone or Maoist prone State. We need to do a lot in this and being a new State, we
are short of funds, we are trying to do it and Hon’ble Home Minister knows that we are
both in terms of recruiting, spending money on it whatever is possible, but we are
doing.
Sir, in Uttarakhand we have a population of 86 lakhs and every year, we get about
2-3 crores of people visiting from outside and these are routine tourists visiting in the
tourist season or in Kawariya season, but in 2010 we have got a Kumbh. That is a
full Kumbh and in that God knows how many crores will come. In that huge mass
of humanity, what type of people will come, who will try to infilterate and create
trouble. This type of issue that is a big problem for us and therefore I am requesting
here also to the Home Minister and the Prime Minister, to kindly help us as much as is
possible, in modernizing our police force.
These are issues related to development, which if left unattended, lead to
discontentment amongst people and eventualy dissatisfaction leads to some sort of
55