NIA, RAW, ATS, IB sleuths told to demolish terror ecosystem amid row with Canada
Subhashis Mittra
A joint meeting was held in New Delhi between intelligence and central agencies including the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) and Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
Addressing the anti-terror conference, Union home minister Amit Shah said anti-terror agencies will have to adopt a ruthless approach so that no new terrorist group is formed in the country. He said not only terrorism, but the entire ecosystem of the terrorists has to be destroyed.
The home minister said tough decisions taken by the Narendra Modi government have yielded very good results in handling challenges posed by cryptocurrencies, hawala, terror-funding, organised crime syndicates and narco-terror links. Still a lot more is to be done, he said while inaugurating the two-day anti-terror conference organised by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
“All anti-terror agencies will have to adopt such a ruthless approach that new terrorist organisations cannot be formed,” he said, adding that there is a need to not only combat terrorism but also dismantle its entire ecosystem, and for this “we must work with the spirit of the whole of government and Team India”.
He said under the leadership of PM Modi, the central and state agencies have succeeded in firmly curbing all forms of terrorism in the country in the last nine years. He said the task of the NIA, anti-terror squads and state task forces should not be limited to investigation, but they should also think out of the box and take innovative measures to counter terrorism.
The home minister said the fight against terrorism requires collaboration from the global level to the grassroots, involving various states within the country, as well as international cooperation. He said to deal with terrorism, the Centre and the states, their agencies and inter-agency cooperation will have to think in vertical and horizontal ways.
Shah said a model anti-terrorism structure should be established under the purview of NIA; the hierarchy, structure, and SoPs of investigation of all anti-terrorism agencies in all states should be made uniform for better coordination between central and state agencies.
“The government has prepared many databases in the last five years. All the agencies of the Centre and the states should make multi-dimensional and artificial intelligence-based use of the database, only then will we be successful in the fight against terrorism,” Shah said. The database should be used for investigation, prosecution, prevention and action, the home minister said and stressed upon every police station as well as young police officers to make maximum use of it.
He asked the NIA and the IB to prepare a common training module for all central and state-level counter-terrorism agencies to bring in uniformity in the methodology of fighting against terrorism. The home minister said the number of terrorism incidents in 2001 was 6000, which dropped to 900 in 2022.
Praising the NIA for achieving more than 94 percent conviction rate, Shah said more work is needed in this direction and asked all the states to take steps to increase the conviction rate.
Highlighting major successes in the fight against drugs, he said during Operation Samudragupta, conducted this year by the NCB, narcotics worth more than Rs 12,000 crore were seized simultaneously. Apart from this, 10 lakh kilograms of drugs have been disposed of, he said.
Shah said terrorism has no boundaries and no state can face terrorism alone and collective effort will be needed to root out this evil. He suggested making five actionable points in every session of the two-day conference to be sent to the home ministry.