"Need system to track down terrorists using modern technology"

March 10, 2010 03:50 pm | Updated November 17, 2021 05:54 am IST - NEW DELHI:

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram. File photo

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram. File photo

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday favoured a real-time decision support system to track down terrorists and organised criminals who had developed various channels of communication with the help of technology.

“The terrorists and organised criminals have developed overt and covert technologies including Information Communication Technology. This has made the job of law and order professionals far more challenging than ever before,” he said, addressing the silver jubilee function of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Challenging task

India needed solutions that could offer robust, real-time and validated decision support systems for the police leadership to evolve remedial and pro-active strategies. “The sheer magnitude of crime in a federal polity of our geographical size makes this task a really challenging one,” he said.

The Home Minister said the challenges posed by criminality in general and other more serious manifestations of crime, in particular terrorism, insurgency, left-wing extremism, transnational crimes, drugs and arms trafficking, and cyber crimes tend to establish that the war against the Indian state was being fought more in the hinterland than on the borders.

“Today, we are fighting our battles on individual pitches. We need to connect, coordinate and supplement our efforts both at micro and macro levels,” Mr. Chidambaram said.

Databank

Referring to the Home Ministry's Rs. 2,000-crore Crime, Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project, he said a conscious decision had been taken to mandate the NCRB to roll out the CCTNS through which a national databank of crime and criminals and their biometric profiles could be created.

This database would have a handshake with databases of 21 other agencies of the criminal justice system such as courts, jails, immigration and passport authorities, and subsequently, be extended to other national agencies through the NATGRID so that terror and crime could be fought more professionally.

Mr. Chidambaram, however, expressed disappointment over the initial delay in the implementation of the CCTNS project. “If we remain firm, determined and have complete control, it is possible to limit the slippage in some stages.”

The Home Minister said though the initial easy tasks of the CCTNS project had been completed, the key works were yet to be done and expressed the hope that the NCRB would be able to do it efficiently and in time.

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