Cybersecurity, religious radicalisation, and Left extremism are likely to be important areas of focus when police chiefs of five southern States convene here for a crucial meeting on September 30.
Kerala Police Chief Loknath Behera will host the meeting which is viewed as a precursor to a nationwide conclave of State Police Chiefs to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November.
The SPCs of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana are scheduled to attend the closed door conference. They are expected to cobble together broad policing strategies to be presented to the Prime Minister.
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Senior officials privy to the preparations said Kerala had its own basket of troubling law and order concerns. The State’s highly educated workforce had of late become a magnet for Islamic State (IS) recruiters seeking to enlist professionals to their global jihadist cause.
The organisation’s online mobilisers had persuaded at least 21 families from north Kerala to the IS in Afghanistan in 2016. There were disturbing reports that some of them were killed in military action.
Closer home, ultra conservative reform movements focussed on proselytising are a worrying concern. The police feel that the “deceptive work” of such organisations would only widen schism between faiths.
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Cybersecurity is also on the top of the conclave’s agenda, especially in the wake of the “ransomware threat” that locked out individual users and crucial services across the globe. The State law enforcement’s cybercrime research unit, Kerala Police Cyberdome, is likely to be heard out by the police chiefs.
Another top priority for the State police is to deny an operational base for armed Left extremists in forested areas in north Kerala. (The police had shot dead two armed Maoists in Nilambur forest.)
The State police are already involved in joint operations with their counterparts to prevent armed Maoist irregulars from dominating the forested area known as the northern tri-junction of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.