New Delhi, September 6
Intelligence Bureau Chief Nehchal Sandhu today said terror groups focusing on Punjab and neighbouring states posed a challenge, while separately batting for a re-worked strategy to tackle persons spreading malicious propaganda over the Internet.

Speaking at the inauguration of the three-day Directors General and Inspectors General of Police conference, Sandhu said: “Given the sort of external support they receive, terrorist groups — including those focusing on Punjab and neighbouring states — are likely to pose a challenge”.

Intelligence Bureau sources said it had inputs that Pakistan-based Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) chief Wadhawa Singh Babbar’s group was making efforts to de-stabilise Punjab. Fresh inputs also indicate that Jagtar Tara, one of the three assassins of late Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh who is absconding following his escape from a Chandigarh jail in 2004, was playing an active role in trying to revive militancy. Groups such as Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) and Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) are also working to make an impact in Punjab.

In a no-holds-barred talk, Sandhu, while narrating the recent exodus of North-East origin persons from the South following Internet rumours of their being attacked, said it was time to re-work the strategy. “There can be no standard template for detection of radicalism,” said the country’s senior-most IPS officer. The audience of top-most IPS officers, some credited with major operational successes in the past two decades, listened in rapt attention.

There is a need to continuously track inter-community relations and firm up intervention plans, Sandhu said. “One aspect is to conceive and introduce a counter radicialisation and de-radicalisation strategy in partnerships with states. A precise plan will unfold in the coming months,” he said.

He made a strong case to develop capacity to identify those responsible for malicious Internet posts. “The Internet is being used to indoctrinate. Ongoing investigation shows the vulnerability of our youth, who can be exploited by radical elements within India and abroad to create closed communities of select subverted individuals,” he said.

On the attack on an Israeli diplomat's vehicle here in February, he said there was a need to be sensitive to the trends developing in the sphere of international terrorism. “The attack on the Israeli vehicle with an innovated, fabricated IED in Delhi this year indicates that international terrorists (were) seeking to attack non-Indian targets on Indian soil.”

Addressing the audience, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde flagged the issue of cyber threat and Naxal violence. He said there was evidence that terrorists were using cyberspace.

“Besides providing infrastructure for discreet communication, cyberspace is proving to be a facilitator for the malevolent seeking new recruits and to purvey a distorted version of reality,” Shinde said. He asked the top brass of the police forces to develop skills in not just locating malicious content, but also for identifying those responsible for posting it. Three experts from the information technology sector had been invited to brief the officers.

Shinde said Pakistan-based Islamist groups continued to push in terrorists and hardware across the border.

Naxalism, he said, continued to pose a significant challenge. “There are indicators about increase in the number of trained and armed Naxal cadres, re-organisation of military potential for formation of new battalions and the creation of well-developed, indigenous capacity for accretions to their arsenal,” Shinde said.