Union Home minister Amit Shah during a speech on the concluding day of the 90th general Assembly of the Interpol in New Delhi on Friday. (Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal)Addressing delegates from 195 countries at an Interpol event in New Delhi on Friday, Home Minister Amit Shah said the world needed to build a consensus on the definition of terrorism and should not attribute political reasons to terrorism.
“Terrorism is a global problem. I firmly believe that nothing violates human rights more than terrorism. To combat cross-border terrorism, we need cross-border cooperation. Interpol is the best platform for that. But first of all, all countries need to reach a consensus on the definition of terrorism. If this consensus is not reached, we will not be able to combat terrorism unitedly. The resolve to fight terrorism in a united manner and the narrative of good terrorism and bad terrorism, and big terrorism and small terrorism, cannot run together,” Shah said at the closing ceremony of the 90th general assembly of the international association of national police forces.
Union Home minister Amit Shah with Interpol president Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi during the closing ceremony of the 90th General Assembly of INTERPOL in New Delhi on Friday. (Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal) The event that started on October 18 has seen the participation from 195 countries, and issues related to cooperation between member countries in combating terrorism, financial crimes, drug trafficking and child sex abuse were discussed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the inaugural session and urged the Interpol to speed up the process of issuing red corner notices as “corrupt and terrorists could not be allowed to have safe havens”.
Shah said the world would also have to build a consensus on the challenge of the spread of terrorism through online radicalisation from across the border. “We cannot see it through the prism of political ideologies. If we consider online radicalisation a political problem, then our fight against terrorism shall remain incomplete. India is committed to fight global terrorism along with the Interpol through technical inputs and manpower,” he said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah hands over the Interpol flag to Andreas Holzer, Director of the Austrian Criminal Intelligence Service (CIS) on the concluding day of the 90th general Assembly of the Interpol in New Delhi on Friday. (Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal) Shah also batted for counterterror agencies across the world having a similar but separate, robust platform for sharing information. “It has been seen that in many countries the Interpol nodal agency and the counterterror agency are different. In such a situation it becomes difficult to bring all counterterror agencies of the world on one platform. It is my suggestion to the Interpol that a mechanism must be established for real-time information sharing among all counterterror agencies in the world. This will strengthen our battle against terrorism,” Shah said.
The Interpol nodal agency in India is the CBI, but the counterterror agency is the National Investigation Agency. While the latter functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs, the former is under the Prime Minister’s Office.
Shah also spoke about the challenge of narco-terrorism and asked for greater cooperation among countries to tackle it.
Shah also suggested that Interpol prepare a plan for the next 50 years on the basis of its experience and achievements of the past 100 years.