Shah calls for formulation of national counter-terrorism strategy, policy

Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday called for the formulation of a national counter-terrorism policy and strategy.

Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day anti-terror conference organised by the NIA, Shah said, “The terrorist attacks and their conspiracy are against us in a borderless and invisible manner. If we have to deal with it accurately, then our young officers will have to be equipped with the highest technology. We are taking the next step in the proactive approach that the Home Ministry has made to fight terrorism, terrorists and the terrorism ecosystem. We will come up with a national counter terrorism policy and strategy.”

He further said though law and order was a state subject, terrorism did not have any territorial limits. “When an RDX is recovered, it finds only two column space, but when bombs made of the same RDX explode, there is widespread media coverage,” Shah said.

He urged top police officials and heads of anti-terror organisations and probe agencies such as the NIA and CBI to use the database prepared by NATGRID. “NATGRID has a wealth of data related to crimes and terror attacks committed all over the country. This is currently akin to jewellery lying in a cupboard. I want this information to reach at the police stations so that crimes can be curbed and all police chiefs must work in this regard. Otherwise, there is no use of this useful data,” Shah said.

The Home Minister said there had been no major terror attacks since 2014 and the ones that had occurred were tackled by the police. The NIA was creating a database of the seized weapons, LWE-affected states and Jammu and Kashmir should contribute to the data, he said, adding that they had to fund the source of those weapons.

The annual conference has over the years emerged as a meeting point for operational forces, technical, legal and forensic experts and agencies engaged in counter-terrorism for deliberations on issues impacting the national security and threats emerging out of terrorism. The key focus of the conference was on developing synergies among various stakeholders by establishing channels for coordinated action against the menace of terrorism in the spirit of the ‘Whole-of-government-approach’ and to present substantive inputs for future policy formulation, an official statement read.