Speaking at the first RV Raju Memorial Lecture on the National Investigation Agency (NIA) day function in New Delhi recently, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said that epicentre and sponsors of terrorism remains in our neighbourhood. The Home Minister said our nation has been victim of terrorism for many decades now. Lot of lives have been lost in various terrorist attacks. Shinde said terror attacks in the country have considerably receded over time. In 2013, four major bomb blasts took place. Unlike in previous years, we have also had considerable success in apprehending the perpetrators of these incidents. The NIA has been in the forefront.
Union Home Minister said the government has brought strong legislation and spent considerable funds for modernisation of state police, Central Armed Police Forces and National Security Guard. In recent past our intelligence agencies have shown wonderful results. Arrest of Yasin Bhatkal, Haddi and Tunda are examples of efforts on the part of our agencies. He said, “We have taken care to ensure that there is a synergy between organisations and entities, responsible for internal security, to enable them to create substantial impact in the fight on terror. The expansion of these institutions, their capacity enhancements, have ensured that we have significant successes in fighting terror”.
The Union Home Minister stated that the terrorism and extremism seek to attack our two most significant achievements- secularism and democracy. These values lie at the very core of our existence, and define us as a ‘nation’. He said, “Our enemies who are at cross purposes with the ‘idea of India’, will continue to attempt to keep us on tenterhooks, and unsettle us, as we move forward in our endeavour of nation building. Eternal vigilance is the price we have to pay in our quest for preserving and maintaining, our hard earned freedom, liberty, democracy, and secularism”.
“The threats to our nation need not merely take on conventional forms and may emanate from hitherto unknown areas, methods, and motivations. We need to keep ourselves prepared in this fight. We need to undertake capacity enhancement and upgrade our skill sets, so as to confront the most virulent and most unusual of these threats,” the Minister added.
Shinde also decorated two NIA officers with President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service and seven officers with Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Service. They included S.K. Singh, IPS, Inspector General and P.V. Rama Sastry, IPS, Inspector General, NIA for President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service and Y.K.Gautam, IPS, Inspector General, Mukesh Singh, IPS, Deputy Inspector General, S.Y.K.Minz, IPS, Deputy Inspector General, J.S. Rautela, Inspector, Balbir Singh, Head Constable, Babu C. Pappachen, Head Constable and K.S Vinod Kumar, Constable, NIA for Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Service.
Earlier delivering the first RV Raju Memorial Lecture on “National Security Expanding Terrorist Dimension”, West Bengal Governor MK Narayanan said that Contrary to what many security and strategic analysts in the West profess, Terrorism remains a grave threat to the civilized world. The so-called demise of AI-Qaeda, is an unfounded myth. The reality is that global terrorism is expanding rapidly, specially in Asia including Russia, and parts of North Africa. Today, terrorism poses the gravest challenge ever, and of a kind that has never been seen previously.
Narayanan said that it would, therefore, be a grievous error if a decline in the number of terrorist incidents across India in the past two years, is touted as evidence of terrorism being effectively checked. A similar decline is present in certain theatres of persistent violence, such as J&K and the North East, but there is a significant difference between the two situations.
