Southern States - Kerala   

Antony opposes move for federal agency

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM FEB. 8. The Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, has opposed the proposal to set up a federal agency to deal with grave offences.

Addressing a conference of Chief Ministers on internal security in New Delhi on Saturday, the Chief Minister said the present arrangement for investigations by the CBI, on request, sufficed.

Mr. Antony, in his speech released here, said that the main reasons for the decreasing effectiveness of the State Police Force were lack of training, low salary and poor working conditions.

Kerala had taken a series of measures to arrest the decline in the effectiveness of the police.

A number of steps had been taken to improve the mobility and to bring about transparency in their functioning. Steps were being taken to establish a new Police Training Academy, he said.

"The Government is seeing to it that there is no interference in the functioning of the police. It proposes to launch a pilot project in the capital separating the investigating system from the law and order system. Depending on its success, it will be extended to other major cities and ultimately to the whole State," he said.

The Chief Minister said it was imperative that special training be imparted to the police to combat terrorism and fundamentalism.

"The general lack of awareness of policemen in the State regarding the impact and actual possibility of terrorist attacks in Kerala is a matter of concern. The State police would be able to effectively counter fundamentalist and anti- national activities only if it was well-trained in modern methods of counter- terrorism and surveillance of anti-national elements.''

He said there was a human dimension to the problem of overstaying of Pakistani nationals of Kerala origin in the State.

"The total number of Pakistani nationals overstaying in the State is only 345. The majority of them, of Kerala origin, are in their seventies and eighties. My Government is evolving a political consensus on their plight and would be approaching the Government of India as soon as this is done,'' he said.

Mr. Antony welcomed the change proposed in the pattern of Central assistance for modernisation of the police force.

It is understood that the Centre would provide 50 per cent of the project cost as grant and 25 per cent as loan, the balance being the State share.

"Kerala was able to use 66 per cent of the budget provision for modernisation of the police force so far in this financial year and it hoped to use the balance by the end of the year. The Government was also contemplating modernisation and strengthening of the Forensic Science set-up and fire and rescue services," he said.

The Government had submitted a comprehensive scheme for policing in the coastal areas. This should be approved at the earliest. The State was vulnerable both to smuggling as well as infiltration of anti-national elements through the coastal areas, he said.

Mr. Antony noted that the dividing line between external and internal security was becoming thinner day by day. New strategies were called for.

"However, the fact remains that security problems cannot be treated merely as law and order problems with traditional methods of policing. A great deal of social content and understanding is necessary for attending to these problems," he said.

``People should have faith in the democratic system and the belief that the Government of the day is committed to their well-being and security.

For far too long, we have been relying only on the police and the paramilitary forces to resolve internal security issues. I hope that we will spend some time discussing issues of good governance also,'' he added.

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