India for regular contact among police chiefs of SAARC nations

Thimphu, Jul 22: India has mooted the idea of regular direct contact among police chiefs of SAARC nations to fight terrorism and other trans-national crime, and formation of a regional organisation on the lines of Interpol.

Home Secretary R K Singh said the common agenda of the SAARC nations was cooperation in fighting terrorism, fighting trans-national crime, checking of trafficking of women and children, illegal immigration and cooperation among police forces of the member countries.

"We have proposed exchanging the email IDs of police chiefs of all countries to get in touch with each other. It is a personal kind of communication between chiefs of police forces.... that is something on the work and we have been emphasising the necessity of getting cooperation in accordance of the terms and conditions," he told PTI here.

Singh said there was a suggestion for formation of a common police organisation call SAARCPOL on the lines of INTERPOL -- an organisation with representatives from all member countries but due to a moratorium on setting up any new organisation by SAARC, the proposal has not been materialised.

"We have a very good system in Interpol. We feel for the need of it. But, you know, sometime back, the SAARC had decided to put a moratorium on new organisation because we already have a lot of organisations and they want these organisations to settle down first before going to set up a new organisation. So that decision stands," he said.

The Home Secretary said there was necessity of cooperation in a systematic manner and "let the chiefs of police forces start talking more often. We already have two desks one on terrorism and one on drug control. Let this desk work properly and then we can talk further," he said.

PTI