Every state to have an National Investigation Agency office by 2024: Home minister Amit Shah

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has been given extraterritorial rights and a branch will be set up in every state by 2024, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Thursday.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day Chintin Shivir in Surajkund, Haryana, Shah said that a joint plan is being formulated to deal with cybercrimes, narcotics, cross-border terrorism, sedition and other such crimes.
"We have to give importance to the 3Cs: cooperation, coordination and collaboration, to be able to further our goals of cooperative federalism and whole-of-government approach... Resource optimisation and integration is necessary," he added.
Terror-related cases
The NIA is a central agency that functions under the aegis of the ministry of home affairs. It is empowered to deal with terror-related crimes across India without special permission from the states.
It was created following the terror attack in Mumbai on December 26, 2008. It came into being on December 31, 2008, with the passage of the NIA Act of 2008. The founding director-general of the NIA was Radha Vinod Raju, who served the agency till 2010.
Dinkar Gupta has been serving as the agency's director-general since June 2022.
Widening scope
The NIA was created mainly to specialise in investigations into incidents of terrorist attacks and bomb blasts in various parts of the country. Majority of such incidents were found to have complex inter-state and international linkages while at the same time being linked to drug and arms smuggling among other activities.
Recognising these inter linkages, the NIA (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was passed by Parliament, which gave the agency wider powers. Besides terrorism cases, it is now empowered to probe crimes involving human trafficking, counterfeit currency, sale of prohibited arms.
The agency currently has 12 regional offices: Hyderabad, Guwahati, Kochi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kolkata, Raipur, Jammu, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Chennai, and Imphal.
The agency also maintains a most wanted list.