Knowing that India has a strong anti terror law, where they can deny bail, use statements made in police presence as evidence and charge someone for terrorist activities, would Ajmal Amir Kasab, or any of his associates, have refrained from committing the act?
Even without such laws, Hyderabad police could wrongly detain 21 muslim youths for almost a year and torture them. Those people have since been released and compensated. Imagine if POTA were in place. Would a cop have the courage to say these are wrong detention or would they have rather continued detention under POTA or a TADA.
Less than 2%, I think, has been the conviction rate under POTA or TADA. Quite a few are still behind bars after several years. And imagine giving the powers to state and state police the power to arrest, interrogate, take statement and basis that statement, convict someone for offences as foul as terrorist acts. Can we as a nation even handle such power when even the simplest are abused by those in charge? Can we afford to have a police officer with such sweeping powers? Not even a metro can afford it where there is awareness and media presence. Rest of India can definitely not.
Its not about the law - it clearly does not act as a deterrant as most of those who commit these offfences are suicidal. Its about the enforcement agencies - low on education, and understanding (they arrested the Noida doctor for daughters murder claiming illegitimate relations because they used to exchange mails??), training (are they equipped to handle latest weapons, or even aim and fire, investigate?), motivation (over worked, under paid) and free of influence (political masters - Corporator, MLA or any other small time politician can influence their promotion or posting).
The need is to reform policing and make the police force answerable to people and not the politicians at least not the state level politicians. Train and compensate them better. Equip them with better technology. Separate policing and investigation. National Investigation Agency seems to answer two of these - an investigation agency and not answerable to state government.
Police reforms remain an issue still. The sooner they're taken up the better for the nation.
