Govt to use detectives, security agn to fight terror

New Delhi, Sep 26: The government has devised a multi-pronged strategy to deal with the scourage of terrorism in the country which focuses on using traditional methods of intelligence gathering and also using private detective and security agencies for the purpose.

The strategy focus on strengthening of police forces by raising new battalions and filling the existing vacancies. Providing modern weapons, transport and communication facilities to police force be given priority under the new strategy, Home Ministry sources said.

The idea of establishing Joint Action Force of states have also been mooted to effectively deal with terrorism.

Providing training to police for counter terror attacks would be given more attention. However, the centre expects the state governments not to solely rely on the central forces for training purpose and set up their own training academies as has been done by the Kerala Goverment. The Centre would like to supplement the efforts of states, they said.

A major thrust area under the new strategy is intelligence collection at national, state, districts, taluka and local levels. As emphasised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Shivraj Patil, the beat constables have been asked to get active so that they could get pin-pointed infromation. Moreover, traditional system of intelligence gathering would be revived.

It also stressed the need for strengthening of special branches in states for intelligence collection. Generally these branches remain under staffed and policemen consider them as punishment postings, the sources pointed out, saying that this needed to be changed by giving them more incentives. Help of private security agencies and detectives would be taken for effective intelligence collection to prevent terror attacks, they said.

Since sea routes are being increasingly used by militants for entering the country, greater vigilance is required at them. Similarly places like markets, laboratories, places of worship and sensitive installations needed to be guarded, the sources said. Creating awareness among people and training them in fight against terrorism is a major component of the new strategy. It has also emphasised creation of peace committees in all villages and town and carefully choosing members of these committees, they said.

Increased allocation for security forces both in the annual budget and in the Five Year Plan has been envisaged. Besides, these allocation for police and security forces should be considered as development expenditure, they said and added that the new strategy calls for strengthening of civil defence organisations.

States have been asked to make anti-terror plan which could be fine tuned in consultation with the Centre, which provides financial support for anti-terror operations.

Moreover, socio-economic aspects like employment generation, education and land reforms should be taken care of as a long term strategy to prevent rise of terror.

UNI