‘Steep decline in terrorism related incidents in J&K’
*Calls for out of box, innovative measures against militancy
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Oct 5: Union Home Minister Amit Shah today called upon all anti-terrorism agencies to adopt such a ruthless approach that a new terrorist organization can’t be formed and called for out of the box and innovative measures to counter terrorism.
In his inaugural address to third two-day `Anti-Terror Conference’, organized by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in New Delhi today, Shah also referred to steep decline in terror incidents, civilian and security force casualties in Jammu and Kashmir during last nine years.
“Jammu and Kashmir has achieved a new dawn of development and peace,” he said.
Citing figures, Shah said 7217 incidents took place in Jammu and Kashmir from 2004 to 2014 while only 2197 incidents happened from June 2014 to August 2023 (the tenure of Narendra Modi Government) recording a decline of 70 percent.
From June 2004 to May 2014, 1769 civilians and 1060 security personnel’s deaths took place while the numbers came down to 336 and 555 during last nine years recording decline of 81 and 48 percent respectively.
Shah said that terrorism has no boundaries and no State can face it alone and declared that we all have to come together to root out this evil.
Shah said 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 Narendra Modi, the Central and State agencies have succeeded in firmly curbing all forms of terrorism in the country in the last nine years.
Calling for establishment of model anti-terrorism structure under purview of the NIA, Shah said 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.
“All anti-terrorism agencies must adopt such a ruthless approach that a new terrorist organization can’t be formed,” the Home Minister said adding that the task of NIA, ATS and STF shouldn’t be limited to investigation but they should also think out of the box and take innovative measures to counter terrorism.
“The Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a tough stand on all the challenges like crypto, hawala, terror-funding, organized crime syndicates and narco-terror links, which has yielded very good results, but still a lot more needs to be done,” the Home Minister said.
He said that the Government has prepared many database verticals in the last 5 years and stressed that all the agencies of the Centre and the State should make multidimensional and Artificial Intelligence-based use of the database.
“Only then will we be successful in the fight against terrorism,” Shah said, adding that the database should be used for investigation, prosecution, prevention and action.
The Home Minister stressed upon every police station as well as young police officers to make maximum use of the database.
Shah said that there should be a common training module for all Central and State-level counter-terrorism agencies, so that uniformity can be brought in the methodology of fighting against terrorism.
Calling upon NIA and IB to take initiative in this direction, the Home Minister said that now the time has come to work from need to know to need to share and duty to share approach.
He said that the number of terrorist incidents in the year 2001 was 6000, which the Government at the Centre led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reduced to 900 in the year 2022. He praised the NIA for achieving more than 94 percent conviction rate and said more work is needed in this direction. He also asked all the States to take steps to increase the conviction rate.
He said with the cooperation of the Central and State Governments, major successes have been achieved in the fight against drugs.
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