Southern states to improve anti-terror coordination

HYDERABAD - The police chiefs of five southern states Wednesday decided to improve coordination, information and intelligence sharing to effectively tackle crime, terrorism and Maoist violence.

The directors general of police (DGPs) of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry and officers from crime investigation departments and intelligence wings met here and discussed an action plan to deal with the new challenges posed by organised criminals, cyber crime and counterfeit currency.

Andhra Pradesh DGP R.R. Girish Kumar told reporters after the inaugural session that the daylong meeting would discuss how to improve cooperation and coordination among states.

“We will come out with an action plan to achieve this,” he said.

Andhra Pradesh Home Minister P. Sabita Indra Reddy inaugurated the conference, which discussed best practices in prevention, detection and prosecution in organised crimes.

The police chiefs also had a thorough discussion on ways and means to bust organised crime modules, to keep police agencies informed in tracing out hard-core criminal gangs and to execute non-bailable warrants on interstate criminals.

Other issues including video piracy, human trafficking and illegal migration networks operated by unscrupulous elements to the Gulf and South East Asian nations were also discussed.

Indra Reddy stressed the need to address socio-economic aspects of the problem posed by Left-wing extremism. She pointed out how the state focused on these aspects while dealing with extremists.

“In addition to the police operations, our government took up interior area development programme ensuring that the people enjoy the benefits of development,” she said.

This is the third conference of southern states. The earlier conferences were held in Tamil Nadu in 2008 and in Kerala in 2009.