New Delhi, Dec. 13: The Prime Minister today said the fight against terrorism should not end up “brutalising” society or targeting certain groups because combating terror and safeguarding human rights were “not mutually exclusive”.

“They can and should go hand in hand. When in conflict, it is possible to resolve them,” Manmohan Singh said, adding that one principal objective of the terror fight was to protect democratic freedoms.

He, however, said the government may in exceptional circumstances be “obliged to derogate from” certain rights “to the extent necessary”.

Singh said the terror fight looked to protect India’s democratic legacy, which was founded on the “anvil of pluralism” and defined by the motto of “unity in diversity”.

This legacy is protected by the rule of law and the constitutional guarantee of human rights, which are “the greatest gift we secured for ourselves as a free people”.

“We need to be resolute and yet careful in our fight against terrorism. We need to understand the relationship between human rights and the fight against terrorism. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive,” he told the International Conference of Jurists on Terrorism, Rule of Law and Human Rights.

He added: “Systematic terrorist acts qualify as they must as crimes against humanity. They sometimes threaten national security. In certain circumstances, states are both entitled and obliged to take steps that seems to derogate from human rights principles. But we should not feel discouraged. Certain rights and freedoms can be derogated from, but only to the extent necessary to meet the security threat.”

Singh also said it was heartening to see the major political parties rise above their “narrower interests to speak and work in a spirit of co-operation” — an apparent reference to the BJP pledge to support the Centre’s anti-terror measures.

The Prime Minister described terrorism as a “fundamental challenge to liberal democracies, the pursuit of secular ideals, pluralism and all that we associate with freedom, the rule of law and human rights”.

“I believe, therefore, (that) all peace-loving, democratic forces around the world have to join hands in the fight against all manifestations of extremism and intolerance. The threat of terrorism in this increasingly integrated world that we live in is not divisible,” he said.

Singh reminded the gathering that the greatest contribution of the freedom struggle was the “democratic inheritance that we have got”.

These values were under attack from the “forces of extremism, irrespective of the ideology that inspires them”. Therefore, it is incumbent on every Indian to “unite and speak as one in the defence of our democratic inheritance”.

Singh noted a method to the terrorists’ madness: their aim was to hurt India’s economic rise by zeroing in on places like the national capital, financial hub Mumbai, infotech centres Bangalore and Hyderabad and tourist hub Jaipur.

“When the economy is hurt, our people are hurt. Our democracy is hurt,” he said.