The Rajya Sabha today took up the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019 for discussion.
The bill seeks to further amend the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act,1967. The bill empowers the Central government to designate individuals as terrorists if the person commits or participates in acts of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes terrorism or is otherwise involved in terrorism.
Earlier, the government could only designate organisations, and not individuals, as terrorists. It also empowers the Director-General, National Investigation Agency (NIA) to grant approval of seizure or attachment of property when the case is investigated by the agency.
Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy had moved the bill in the House. Prabhat Jha of BJP, Kapil Sibal of Congress, Prasanna Acharya of BJD and Ram Nath Thakur of JD(U) among those participated in the discussion. However, the debate on the bill remained inconclusive.
