: Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday that the NDA government was working on strengthening anti-terror laws and providing legal protection for undercover operations to investigating agencies.
Addressing the first National Conference of Investigating Agencies, Mr. Singh said the government is committed to punishing terrorists and is working to strengthen the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act.
“We are considering legal protection for undercover operations, use of intelligence collected as evidence, and the entire gamut of issues relevant to combating terrorism,” he said.
Mr. Singh said that due to the widespread use of social media by terrorists, new threats have been emerging in the country.
“To face these challenges, the present capabilities of specialised organisations like India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) need to be strengthened,” he said.
He said that the government is also examining enactment of the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to provide legal sanction for evidence obtained through Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties and remove doubts about the admissibility of such evidence.
Mr. Singh said the central government is committed to the empowerment and development of Dalits, and has created an atmosphere where the community can approach the police without hesitation if they are victimised.
The NDA government has strengthened the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act by amending it in 2014 and adding a new category of offences, the Home Minister said.
He said the government has taken various steps to improve the quality of investigations and has revamped the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems (CCTNS) project for complete computerisation of the working of the police forces, and extended it to court, jail, prosecution and forensic laboratories.
To investigate crimes against women, dedicated Investigative Units on Crimes against Women (IUCAW) are being established in 564 districts of India, he said.
He said that in these units, one-third of the investigators will be women and funds will be made available to them by central and state governments on a 50-50 partnership basis.
The Home Minister said the Central government will spend Rs. 324 crore over the next two years on these units.
Mr. Singh said that investigative agencies are facing many challenges and hoped that the conference would be an opportunity to discuss ways to overcome them.
