SAARC Home Ministers to meet from Oct 23 to 25 to discuss terroris

New Delhi, Oct 22 (UNI) Curbing the menace of terrorism, organised crimes, narcotics smuggling and human trafficking would be the focus of the three-day long SAARC Home Ministers Conference beginning here tomorrow.

The meeting, to be chaired by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, would be attended by Home/Interior Ministers of all the eight SAARC nations, including Afghanistan.

The members would discuss evolving a joint mechanism to address all multilateral issues, including terrorism and rising militancy in various countries of the region. Narcotics trade and trafficking and migration of people along the porous borders of the country of the region would also be deliberated.

The Chiefs of Police of all SAARC countries would meet tomorrow to deliberate on the issues relating to policing and how to strengthen it. On Wednesday, Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta would chair the meeting of Home Secretaries of the SAARC nations.

Home Ministers of the SAARC countries would meet on October 25 to deliberate on the issues identified by the official level meetings.

The meeting is part of the regular interactions SAARC countries-- India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka -- have. This year India is hosting the meeting.

Earlier, India had favoured establishment of a joint mechanism by SAARC nations to share expertise and resources of their police training organisations in combating terrorism and organised crime.

Addressing the first conference of heads of police training institutions of SAARC countries in Hyderabad earlier this month, Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal had called for evolving a shared vision of the future for the region.

According to Mr Jaiswal, such a vision must be rooted in the common values and based on individual and collective strengths that will enable South Asia to realise its full potential in the 21st century.

The conference had focused on sharing experiences in tackling terrorism and strengthening cooperation on various issues related to policing.

Law and order in the region was taking newer hues with criminals using latest technology to collect data base of their targets. Thus, police forces of SAARC needed to chalk out a route map for greater cooperation so as to make the region peaceful.

The forces would try to consolidate the gains in the regional cooperation and to forge a blueprint for exchange of resources, both human and material and sharing of experiences, information and data, learning from one another's success stories and mistakes.

UNI