Arun Jaitley praises NIA, defends snooping order

New Delhi, Dec 27 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday lauded the NIA for busting an alleged Islamic State terror plot, and shielded an ongoing government order authorising investigative agencies to monitor any computer.

"Well done NIA for breaking the dangerous terrorist module," he tweeted. "Would this crackdown of the terrorist module by NIA have been conceivable without interference of electronic communications?"

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Wednesday captured 10 people after attacks at 17 areas in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi for allegedly being part of a module of the IS.

Jaitley hit out at the Congress, which alongside other opposition parties, has assaulted the legislature for "snooping on citizens" through its order authorising investigative agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt information stored in any computer.

"Were the most extreme captures done amid the UPA Government? Definitely George Orwell was not born in May 2014," he said in another tweet.

He was reacting to senior Congress leader P Chidambaram's assault on the government saying, "If anyone will screen the PC, including your PC, that is the Orwellian state. George Orwell is around the bend. It is condemnable".

Congress president Rahul Gandhi also had assaulted the order saying, "It's only going to prove to over 1 billion Indians what an insecure dictator you really are".

The request, Jaitley had a week ago expressed, was under a 2009 rule and the opposition was "making a mountain where even a molehill doesn't exist".

"National security and power are foremost. Life and individual freedom will endure just in a solid majority rule country not in a psychological militant commanded state," Jaitley said Thursday.

The NIA Wednesday said the group self-appointed and financed was in a "advanced stage of carrying out a series of blasts" the nation over and had "vital installations and important personalities, including politicians" on their target.