Union Home Minister Amit Shah has directed authorities to undertake focused and dedicated measures to bring back fugitives involved in terrorist and smuggling activities. This directive came while inaugurating the two-day National Security Strategies conference held in a hybrid format with around 800 officers participating from across India.

Shah emphasised strengthening inter-agency coordination between central and state law enforcement agencies and called for a recalibrated approach to disrupt domestic nodes of the terror-criminal nexus.

Key aspects of Shah’s address included a review of terror financing mechanisms with a mandate to unearth terror modules by analysing financial irregularities. He also underscored the importance of using only indigenous technology for police operations.

The conference addressed challenges posed by encrypted communication apps used illegally by terror networks and tasked the Ministry of Home Affairs to create a forum with stakeholders to devise solutions for countering this issue.

The first day of the conference focused on external actors hostile to India’s interests and their domestic links, including narcotics trade involvement. Technology applications for crowd management and security of uninhabited islands were deliberated alongside terror financing concerns.

The second day planned focus on civil aviation and port security, counterterrorism, left-wing extremism, and narcotics trafficking countermeasures. The event follows a directive from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 to hold this strategic conference annually, utilising the expertise of senior and cutting-edge police officers in collaboration with domain experts to tackle major national security challenges.

Amit Shah’s instructions aim to intensify efforts in fugitive retrieval related to terrorism and smuggling, enhance agency coordination and intelligence sharing, ensure technological self-reliance, and strengthen multi-stakeholder collaboration to secure the nation against evolving security threats.

Based On A PTI Report