Two-day conference in Capital: Transnational organised crimes, role of social media on agenda of anti-terror meet to be chaired by Amit Shah

Sharing some of the key issues on the list, a source in the Home Ministry said it has been decided by the NIA to share the case details of Rameshwaram cafe blast — how it happened, how the accused evaded their arrest and how they were arrested owing to the coordination of West Bengal police with the NIA.

Organised crime a key element of terror funding in northeast India, use of encrypted applications, linkages of organised criminal gangs with terrorism, social media regulations and their role in terror cases — these are some of the key issues listed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for discussion with the heads of intelligence agencies and state counter-terrorism squads in a two-day anti-terror conference in New Delhi starting tomorrow.
Last year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had asked state police forces and anti-terror agencies to adopt such a “ruthless” approach that no new terrorist group can be formed.

Sharing some of the key issues on the list, a source in the Home Ministry said it has been decided by the NIA to share the case details of Rameshwaram cafe blast — how it happened, how the accused evaded their arrest and how they were arrested owing to the coordination of West Bengal police with the NIA.

“Apart from Rameshwaram cafe blast, it has also been decided to discuss in detail organised crime as a key element of terror funding in Northeast India, the rise of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) in India, especially in southern states, and emerging modus operandi for supplying arms and drugs from across the border via drones,” the source said, adding that linkages of transnational organised crime syndicates with terrorist groups and dismantling terror ecosystem in Left Wing Extremism sectors will also be discussed.

All the Director Generals of Central Armed Police Forces, state police chiefs, senior officials of counter-terrorism squads and Central government officials have been invited to the two-day conference at Sushma Swaraj Bhawan. The conference will start on November 7 and end on November 8.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to attend the conference. “It has also been decided to discuss the importance of uniform anti-terror structure, coordination of counter-terrorism squads with the district after identifying terror hotspots in every police station and the approach of the government against the financing angle of terrorism/terror,” the source said.

The NIA, after discussing with the senior officials in the MHA, has also listed issues such as social media regulations and their role in terror cases, probe into the usage of encrypted applications, virtual private networks (VPNs), virtual numbers and the impact of narcotics trafficking on national security.

An official said the NIA will also discuss the usage of its “national-level terror database”, which includes the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System with over 90 lakh fingerprint records, Integrated Monitoring of Terrorism with data of 22,000 terrorist cases, National Integrated Database on Arrested Narco-Offenders with data of over 5 lakh offenders, National Database of Human Trafficking Offenders with data of about 1 lakh human traffickers.