President K R Narayanan on Thursday hoped that the international coalition being formed to fight terrorism would not adopt a selective approach as this would smack of the doctrine of differential rights. Inaugurating a four-day International Conference on International Law in New Delhi, he said terrorism has now emerged as a sinister phenomenon threatening our civilised existence as its magnitude and seriousness was revealed to the world by September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Referring to the cross-border terrorism in India, he said thousands of lives had been lost in the last two decades and we were using every forum available in the world to voice our concerns and remind the world that this scourge must be wiped out before it overwhelms us. Nobody paid much heed to us.
He emphasised that terrorists who pose a threat to the civilian population and elected governments must be eliminated wherever they be.
The President said it was unfairly being said in many quarters that terrorist attacks on America represented the so called clash of civilisations.
Every effort must be made to drive home the point that it is not civilisations that clash but barbarism. Civilisation gives rise to dialogue, cross fertilisation of ideas and the confluence of different streams of mankind, he said. Bureau Report