MHA unveils India’s first counter-terror policy

Subhashis Mittra

India’s first counter-terrorism policy–PRAHAR–seeks to deny terrorists, their financiers and supporters access to funds, weapons and safe havens, both within and outside the country. Unveiled by the ministry of home affairs (MHA), the policy is based on seven key pillars to counter the terror threats emanating from India or abroad such as prevention, responses, aggregating internal capacities, human rights and ‘Rule of Law’-based processes, attenuating the conditions enabling terrorism including radicalisation, aligning and shaping the international efforts to counter terrorism and recovery and resilience. It is a comprehensive framework built on zero tolerance, intelligence-led prevention and coordinated response to extremist violence. It refers to ‘neighbours’ who use terrorism as an instrument of the state, highlighting threats from jihadi outfits, and terrorist groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al Qaeda.

In a fast-changing world, where contemporary terror networks often operate as decentralised and digitally connected ecosystems through encrypted messaging, the policy aims to take to a higher trajectory the country’s counter-terrorism strategy into the 21st century and manage threats both traditional and digital.

The eight-page document says India has been at the forefront of the ongoing fight against terrorism for several decades now. While the nature of threats continues to change and present new challenges, India has remained consistently opposed to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. India has since long been affected by sponsored terrorism from across the border, with jihadi terror outfits as well as their frontal organisations, continuing to plan, coordinate, facilitate and execute terror attacks in India. India has been the target of global terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and the ISIS, which have been trying to incite violence in the country through sleeper cells.