The proposed amendment to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) that enables the government to designate individuals as terrorists will be used “sparingly”, a senior government official said on Friday.

Once the anti-terror law is amended, the first ones to be designated on a priority basis will be Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad’s Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, the official said.

Rules yet to be defined

The government is yet to define the rules that will govern the Unlawful Activities Prevention (Amendment) Bill, 2019. The official said the process was non-judicial. It will be decided by officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the “burden of proof” will be on the government.

As of now, there are no specific provisions to initiate legal action against officials who have erred in their decision. The police will be able to act against the individual concerned based on the designation, though the jail term and other punitive actions have not been specified yet.