NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Monday called for “zero delay” in counter-terrorism operations and an “automated response mechanism” at every level of the country’s PRAHAAR counter-terrorism framework.
Inaugurating a conference on the policy and strategy in New Delhi, Shah also launched an extradition portal intended to speed up efforts to bring fugitives back to India.
The portal brings the Union home and external affairs ministries, the CBI and state agencies onto a common platform for extradition cases, sources said. It is intended to coordinate their work when a fugitive is detained abroad and an extradition request must be sent to that country after obtaining the necessary court approval.
Shah urged agencies to take a proactive, results-oriented approach and to use continuing analysis of terror incidents to strengthen the PRAHAAR strategy over the next decade, the home ministry said in a statement. He called for the strategy to be put into practice down to the police station level and stressed the need for coordination among agencies.
The ministry unveiled PRAHAAR in February as the country’s first national counter-terrorism policy. The framework sets out seven areas of work: prevention, response, building domestic capacity, human rights, reducing conditions that enable terrorism, international cooperation, and recovery and resilience.
Shah cited action against the Shahzad Bhatti network as an example of cooperation among agencies. He said more than 40 modules allegedly involved in cross-border smuggling of weapons, explosives and narcotics had been dismantled, more than 100 FIRs registered and 350 people arrested across 15 states. The government had also declared the network a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, he said.
The minister asked state police forces to set up dedicated teams to work with central agencies on extradition cases. He said India had brought back 288 fugitive criminals from 36 countries between 2019 and 2026.
The conference was attended by the Union home and foreign secretaries, heads of central armed police forces and central police organisations, police chiefs from 15 states, and Anti-Terrorism Squad chiefs from the states and Union territories. Other state police chiefs and senior officers joined virtually.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
