New Delhi, December 17 2008: Seeking to appropriate the credit for the new anti-terror laws, BJP today said the Congress-led coalition should accept its "mistake" of not bringing such legislations earlier and alleged that the delay has "harmed" the country a lot.

"You have woken from the slumber of 'Kumbha-karna' of the last 7-8 years.

I want you to accept that you were wrong and it was a mistake," Leader of Opposition LK Advani said in the Lok Sabha making a scathing attack on the Government's policy so far on tackling terror.

Advani told the Congress that it has done a U-turn on the issue in the wake of the outrage caused by the Mumbai terror strikes and reminded the treasury benches that the BJP-led NDA has been a votary of strong anti-terror laws.

"I find nothing wrong in the new legislations and we support it in principle, but there are certain lacunae which need to be addressed," he said.

Noting that he was satisfied with the measures, but was "not happy" as the steps have come after much delay, he told the Government that media was dubbing the development as "old wine in new bottle and UPA returns to POTA".

He alleged that the main flaw in the Government's handling of terror so far was that it treated terrorism as a law and order problem.

Taking a dig at the Congress which had dubbed the POTA as "anti-minority", Advani said maybe as the new laws were brought about by the UPA, the party felt it would not be considered to be against the minorities.

The situation the country was finding itself in today was not different from that of war, Advani said and asserted that it should be faced with unity and above all, a will to win.

"If the two laws indeed mean that you have turned a new leaf and you have taken a new turn, I will be very happy," he said regretting that anti-terror law was earlier being treated as an "anti-minority" law.

The former Home Minister also wanted the Bills to have provisions that memberships of banned organisations like SIMI should be construed as a terrorist act.

"And we have a strange situation that members of the Cabinet keep on defending SIMI".

Turning to the issue of delay in the execution of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, Advani said such delay sends a wrong message to the world that India is a soft country.

Describing Pakistan as the epicentre of terrorism, he took exception to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remark sometime back that Pakistan was itself a "victim of terrorism".

He also disapproved of the joint mechanism between India and Pakistan to fight terror.

The leader of the Opposition said that in the last Lok Sabha elections, Congress and its allies had made POTA an issue and promised to scrap it if elected.

Pointing out that TADA was brought when P Chidambaram was Minister of State for Home, Advani said the BJP never made any demand of scrapping TADA but just warned against its misuse.

Advani suggested that the Bills be sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee to be debated fully before being passed by Parliament.

By introducing the laws, the Government has changed in principle the stand held by it over the last 10 years, he said.

Attacking the Congress for scrapping the POTA, he said though it was meant to target terror, the Government at that time had felt that the law of the land was enough to tackle terrorism.

"But we did not think so.

Our neighbouring country used it as a proxy war.

It planned and carried out a proxy war in Punjab and Kashmir," he said.

Making comparisons with the United States, Advani said post-September 11 strikes, the US had brought in a spate of legislations which have helped stop further attacks there.

"Even the United Nations had specially recommended that countries enact special laws to tackle terror," he said.

On the misuse of POTA, he shot back, "which law of the land is not misused? We should guard against the misuse of a law instead of scraping it altogether".

Holding that the Mumbai attacks have perpetrated anger against the whole political community, he said, "a strict legal framework is needed to tackle terror".

After the Mumbai incident, the Government has changed its tune somewhat, he said adding the terrorists had selected the places of attack carefully where they would find foreigners.

Participating in the debate, Samajwadi Party's Mohan Singh said if a strong anti-terror law was not adopted, it would show "our" weakness.

He claimed the Centre had been trying to bring something on the lines of National Investigation Agency for the past two years.

The Committee on Home Affairs had held several rounds of discussions on the issue and a draft of the proposed Bill was circulated to State Governments, he said.

Many State Governments were against such an agency as according to them it was against the principle of the Union structure of the country, he added.

Singh said terrorism has inter-State and international ramifications and it was not possible for the police of one State to probe such crimes.

RJD's Devendra Prasad Yadav said communal harmony was a must to defeat terror.

"POTA failed as it targeted a particular segment," he said triggering protests from BJP members.

In an apparent attack on the BJP, he said certain people "celebrated" when ATS chief Hemant Karkare was killed during the Mumbai terror attacks as their role in the Malegaon blasts would not come out now.

Shiv Sena's Anant Geete said the proposed anti-terror law was like "mini POTA".

He said it took years for the Government to understand that an anti-terror law was required.

"I hope a situation does not arise when the Government will have to frame a law more stringent than POTA," he added.

Attacking UPA, he said while "we are accused of releasing Masood Azhar.

The file relating to the death sentence of Afzal Guru is pending with the Cabinet for years." Kapil Sibal told BJP-led NDA that had they not released Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar during the Kandahar hijacking, Mumbai terror attack would not have taken place.

He countered Advani's suggestion of not hurrying through the Bills and sending them to a Standing Committee.

"Even you felt the need for an ordinance in the case of POTA," he said.

The debate was polemical from the word go, with the BJP leaders interrupting Sibal frequently.

Sibal, who kept repeating 'I won't yield to you, sir' said, "POTA was a tool for you to take your politics forward".

He added that Congress did not "want to throw into the dustbin basic human rights" while bringing in the new law.

Interestingly, Congress took the BJP line of argument today when it said that strong anti-terror laws may not prevent terrorist attacks but would ensure speedy and effective trials.

"Though you had POTA, how many terrorist acts were you able to prevent? Amir Ajmal Kasav came to Mumbai despite MCOCA," Sibal said.

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