How are terrorists designated under the UAPA? | Explained
The story so far: On July 4, 2026 the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) designated 23 individuals as “terrorists” under the Unlawful Activities Prevention
The story so far: On July 4, 2026 the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) designated 23 individuals as “terrorists” under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967. A Bengaluru techie is among the six Indians and 17 Pakistanis who were designated “terrorists” and the individuals who are no longer in India are accused of roles ranging from recruitment, training, infiltration and logistics support to financing, arms supply, drone-based weapons delivery and planning or facilitating terror attacks in India. The list of total designated terrorists now stands at 80. What is the law under which the designations have taken place? The designations were made under Section 35 of UAPA. The provision empowers the Central Government to add the name of an individual in the Fourth Schedule to the UAPA, if it believes that individual is involved in terrorism. When was it introduced? The said provision was inserted in the UAPA through an amendment in 2019. The UAPA, enacted in 1967, was first amended in 2004, 2008 and 2013. The 2004 amendment was to ban organisations for terrorist activities, under which 34 outfits, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad were banned. The 2019 amendment on August 2 the same year, gave MHA the power to designate individuals as terrorists. Why was the law amended in the first place? Replying to the debate in Rajya Sabha on August 2,2019 while the UAPA Amendment Bill was being discussed, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that terrorist acts are committed not by organisations but by individuals.
Merely declaring an organisation as a terrorist organisation will not stop the individuals behind it and not designating them as terrorists, would give them an opportunity to circumvent the law and they would simply gather under a different name and keep up their terror activities, the Minister said. He stated that that terrorism is a global problem and the United Nations along with several other countries, have provisions in their laws to designate individuals as terrorists. The amendment also gave powers to Director General, Investigation Agency (NIA) to attach properties acquired from proceeds of terrorism. The Minister said that the law does not take away powers of the State police. When NIA takes up a case having international and inter-state ramifications, all the facts pertinent to the case are with the NIA, and not with the State police, he said. The Minister said that at present, the law requires that NIA take prior permission from the respective State DGP to attach the proceeds of terrorism,which delays the process as often such properties are in different States. Who were the first individuals to be designated terrorists? In September 2019, those among the first to be designated as terrorists were Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Hafiz Saeed, his deputy Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who planned and executed the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. All the individual terrorists are Pakistan-based. Were there any concerns regarding the misuse of the law?
The BriefWire