by Manoj Anand, Asian Age
Union home minister Rajnath Singh said here on Saturday that the growing threat of Islamic State (ISIS) in the Indian subcontinent was the biggest challenge, especially in the wake of some youth being lured by them.
Referring to the attack in Arnia sector, Mr Singh said that Pakistan claims “non-state” actors are behind such incidents, which is not true.
“I want to ask Pakistan if its intelligence agency the Inter-Services Intelligence, is also a ‘non-state actor’,” Mr Singh said, reiterating that Pakistan was engaged in destabilising India.
The Union home minister also pointed out, “Though ISIS was born in Syria and Iraq, it is a fact that the Indian subcontinent is not outside its radar, especially as some Indian youth are also getting attracted to it.”
He said, “Moreover, the Al Qaeda had recently announced the formation of a new outfit, Qaeda-ul-Jihadi, with the intention of specifically targeting Gujarat, Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir and Bangladesh.”
He said, “India cannot remain unaffected by international terrorism, (and the) activities of the Islamic State. We can’t take Al Qaeda’s threat of turning India into an Islamic country lightly, we should consider it a challenge.”
Asserting that India was capable of handling these threats, Mr Singh, in his inaugural address at the 49th police conference, however, asserted, “There might be many terrorist organisations in the world, but we will not allow them to get a foothold in our country.”
Mr Singh also expressed confidence that these Islamic terror groups will never be able to succeed in India and said that the majority of Indian Muslims will not side with them. “I am sure these terror groups will never succeed in India. They may try to convert India into an Islamic country on the assumption that a large number of Muslims will support them. But the fact remains that Indian Muslims had fought and sacrificed equally with others for India’s independence,” Mr Singh said.
The home minister, at the meeting attended by police chiefs from across the country as well as senior officials from intelligence agencies, also urged states to fill up vacancies in police forces and assured them of all possible help.
Speaking about modernising police forces, Mr Singh stressed the need to make the police people-friendly.
“Our coastal security network is inadequate and it should be strengthened,” he said while expressing his concern on the growing use of cyberspace by anti-national and anti-social forces. He asked the police chiefs to deliberate on strategies and steps to monitor cyberspace. He admitted that the biggest stumbling block in this direction was that the majority of servers are outside India. “We should work out a strategy on how to handle it,” he said.
