Govt to come up with a National Counter Terrorism Policy soon, says Amit Shah

Addressing the Anti-Terrorism Conference, the Home Minister said all state and central agencies must work in close coordination for it.

New Delhi: Insisting that the country is moving forward with a solid strategy against terrorism, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said the government will be coming out with a National Counter Terrorism Policy and Strategy very soon.

Addressing the Anti-Terrorism Conference here, he said all state and central agencies must work in close coordination, chalk out joint strategies and share intelligence to tackle terrorism, which is "borderless".

Emphasising that the country is committed to eradicating terrorism, he said the entire world has now accepted that there should be zero tolerance towards the menace and that India has created a strong ecosystem to fight against it.

"We are taking the next step in our proactive approach in the fight against terrorism, terrorists and the terrorism ecosystem. We will come up with a National Counter Terrorism Policy and Strategy in a few months," he said.

Shah said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) can make policy but it would not be successful if the states do not act. 

"The MHA will play its part but the main fight will have to be done by the state police. All agencies will support the states from sharing information to helping in taking action," he said.

Advising top police officers from the state attending the conference, he said there is a need to establish a synergy down to the level of police stations and set up a strong ecosystem against terrorism.

He also emphasised the need to legally strengthen the hands of agencies fighting terrorism and pointed to the changes in law to increase the jurisdiction of the National Investigation Agency as well as amendments in UAPA.

The changes allowed probing terror cases abroad and confiscate assets of declared terrorists and organisations among other things, he said adding a 25-point integrated plan has been put in place to stop the funding of terrorism.

He also referred to the expanding scope of Multi Agency Centre (MAC) and SOPs were created under it to monitor cyber security, narco terror and emerging radical hotspots. This, he said, has led to success in preventing many crimes before they happen.

He said during the Modi government's last ten years in government, terror incidents have come down by 70% in comparison to the previous decade. Now the shelf life of terrorists has decreased from two years to a few days, he said.

Violence has been controlled to a great extent in Jammu and Kashmir, naxal-affected areas and the northeastern states in the last 10 years, he said.

The two-day conference, ending on Friday, 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 national security and threats emerging out of terrorism.

The key focus of the conference is on developing synergies among various stakeholders by establishing channels for coordinated action against the menace of terrorism in the spirit of 'Whole of the Government approach' and to present substantive inputs for future policy formulation, an official statement has said.