National

Centre to focus on terrorism issues

NEW DELHI: At the first meeting of the Chief Ministers, being held here on Tuesday after the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, the Centre will focus on issues of terrorism, sprucing up intelligence machinery and putting in place a preventive mechanism to thwart threats to India’s national security and integrity.

The “CMs’ meeting on Internal Security,” to be presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will be attended by all the Chief Ministers and administrators of Union Territories. It will also be the first such meeting to be addressed by Home Minister P. Chidambaram.

“Although issues relating to internal security are wide ranging, immediately our specific focus will be on terrorism, strengthening of intelligence machinery and on [a] preventive mechanism across the country, particularly at vulnerable places,” Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta told reporters on the eve of the meeting. On Wednesday, the Home Minister is to meet Chief Ministers of seven States most affected by naxal violence.

Mr. Gupta said the Centre would like to get the response from the States on issues relating to terrorism, intelligence and preventive mechanism as their needs and responses were different from one another. “For example, we see different types of responses in the North East, Jammu and Kashmir and naxal-violence affected States. Similarly, the needs of Kerala are different from those of Assam, we have to keep all these factors in mind,” he said.

The Home Secretary said that issues of security in metros, policing in leading cities and the need for raising specialised forces, their training and other requirements would also be discussed. “We feel that such an interaction is beneficial and it is not enough to merely identify challenges to internal security, we have to remain focused in dealing with them and we will ensure that focus is not lost sight of.”

Mr. Gupta said that a number of initiatives have been taken over the past one month, including the setting up of the National Investigation Agency for which rules have also been notified. Issues such as staffing of NIA, mainly tasked to investigate terror-related incidents, could also be discussed.

He said that subsidiary units of Multi Agency Centre (MAC) in all State capitals to pool in intelligence inputs and analyse them to zero in on “actionable intelligence” would need to be made operational in the near future. Along the same lines, an exercise would be launched to complete “vulnerability analysis” in all the coastal states.

The Chief Ministers are likely to present their views on the latest decisions of the Centre to curb terrorism and suggest new measures.

Issues of coordination between the Centre and the States and security of vital installations would be discussed.

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