Consultative meet disccuses steps to combat armed violence
Delhi commits to assisting NE States to maintain peace
Source: The Sangai Express / Ninglun Hanghal
New Delhi, July 03 2013:
A meeting of the consultative committee of MPs for Ministry of Home Affairs held yesterday discussed steps to combat terrorism in India.
The meeting was addressed by Union Home Minister SK Shinde and Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami who took over as Home Secretary on June 30 .
Goswami is an IAS officer of the 1978 batch and belongs to the Jammu & Kashmir cadre.
Members of Parliament in the committee who were present include Dr Thokchom Meinya, Ismail Hussain, Kamal Kishot, Lalu Prasad, Dr Rattan Singh Ajnala, Yogi Aditya Nath from Lok Sabha and Bhubaneswar Kalita, HK Dua, Mohd Ali Khan, Om Prakash Mathur, Prof Ram Gopal Yadav and Shri Vinay Katiyar from the Rajya Sabha.
In his address the Union Home Minister stated that while there is considerable improvement in the security situation, there is a terrorist threat: and challenges to internal security that comes from four sides namely Jammu and Kashmir, North Eastern States, Left Wing Extremism (LWE) and terrorism in the hinterlands of the country.
An official release stated that the Central Government is continuously assisting the North Eastern States by deploying Central Armed Police Forces to assist the State Police in their counter -insurgency operations against militant outfits; augmenting and upgrading the State Police force by way of sanction of Indian Reserved Battalion.
Most of the NE States are considered to be relatively peaceful excepting Assam and Manipur that still have problems.
Sources also told The Sangai Express that several initiatives have been taken up for negotiations with various rebel groups in the North East which have come out for peace talks and laid down their arms.
Reportedly, in NE States an amount of approximately 1-2 lakhs were given to one surrendered militant/ rebel with a monthly allowance of approximately 3-4 thousand rupees In the State of J & K employment generation schemes like 'Udaan' and 'Himayat' have been initiated.
According to the official release, the Consultative meet discussed the legal regime and mechanism for counter terrorism like amendments of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 in 2008 and 2012 .
It may be mentioned that AFSPA was not included in the Agenda and no discussion was held on National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) a proposal put up by the Center Government that could not come to a consensus at the Chief Ministers' meet held recently in June.
Deliberating on all aspect of combating terrorism in the country, the security situation in the State of J&K, North Eastern States, Left Wing Extremism, co-ordination amongst security agencies, rehabilitation policy and se-.
curity arrangements along the borders, the consultative meeting proposed to step up modernization of State Police Forces to deal with the issue of Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) and NATGRID, and link further data bases for creating actionable intelligence.
The meet noting the Left wing extremism as one of the gravest challenges, it proposed a strategy of a combination of security measures coupled with development measures.
The efforts to combat terrorism was strengthened by sharing of intelligence through close and effective co-ordination amongst Central and State level agencies and creation of four regional hubs (Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkatta) of National Security Guards (NSG) to cover the whole country, the release said.
Further the establishment of National Investigation Agency (NIA) for dealing with cases of terrorism exclusively, border security measures to guard land border through fencing along with flood lighting and border roads on the Indo-Pakistan and Indo-Bangladesh Border has also improved the security situation, stated the release.
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