The State Human Rights Commission has suggested to the Karnataka government to set up a policy to combat terrorism.

The newly-appointed chairman of the commission, Justice S R Naik, said that the need of the hour is a strong and unambiguous policy to tackle terrorism.

Justice Naik said that the issue of terrorism has reached our backyards and hence there is an urgent need to bring about a policy to tackle the problem. He said that the problem has engulfed the entire world and terrorist outfits have gone up to the extent of challenging even elected governments.

With this being the scenario, it would not be right on part of the government to take the issue lightly. A policy he felt would give more focus in tackling this problem and stringent laws could be enacted also, he added. ''Terrorism is undeniably a crime and its perforators are undoubtedly criminals and they need to be dealt with an iron fist, Justice Naik also suggested to the government.

On the UK terror plot, he said that incident has shattered the image of the city and the state of Karnataka. Terrorists involved in killing innocents and non-combatant people and the impact of terrorism was quite grim, gloomy and alarming,'' he said.

He further suggested to the government that apart from having a firm and unambiguous policy on terror, the government should show no mercy to unlawful elements who believed in destruction.