New Delhi: Amid growth of homegrown terror
groups, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today warned about the
dangers of terrorism becoming an "internal intruding problem"
and said credible effective strategies needed to be devised to
deal with such a challenge in a sensitive manner.
Addressing IPS Probationers here, Singh said terrorism
coming from external sources was easy to deal with in some
ways but the home grown terrorism required sensitive
handling.
He said the growing problem the country faces is of
terrorism "sometimes supported by forces outside our country
but we must also recognise that today I think there are
dangers that terrorism can become an internal intruding
problem as well".
Contending that terrorism "driven by outside forces or
sent to our country" was in some way "easy" to tackle,
Singh said, however, that "if the terror modules are to be
found in our country and some misguided elements of our
society take to that path, I think we have to tackle this
problem with all the sensitivity that it requires."
This is one area which requires "very sensitive
handling", he said asking the young police officers to devise
"credible effective strategies to deal with this very
sensitive issue".
Singh was not specific but was apparently referring to
the growth of terror incidents involving home grown groups like
Indian Mujahideen and SIMI.
Underlining the need for respecting human rights while
dealing with terror-related cases, the Prime Minister said law
and order enforcement machinery must use technologies and
techniques which do not have recourse to third degree methods.
"I think as citizens of our country, we must devise ways
and means of conducting our inquiries by the police and other
entities without use of third degree methods. We must respect
the rights of our citizens", he said.
Singh said that until conviction, everybody should be
regarded as innocent. "That`s the basic philosophy of our
system. These are some of the concerns that I have", he said.
Along with terrorism, he identified Naxalism, communalism
and management of law in metropolitan cities as immense
challenges to the law and order machinery in all parts of the
country.
"Questions are the same everywhere, answers must be
location specific," he said.
Talking about Naxalism, the Prime Minister said the
people of tribal areas fall easy prey because of disaffection
for which the root causes are social and economic.
Emphasising the need for "sensitivity" to recognise the
root causes of the disaffection, he said Naxalism needed to be
handled both as law and order problem and as a development
problem.
"Naxalism today afflicts central India where the bulk of
India`s mineral wealth lies and if we don`t control Naxalism,
we have to say goodbye to our country`s ambitions to sustain
growth rate of 10-11 per cent per annum" which is needed to
get rid of poverty, ignorance and disease.
"What causes this disaffection? Why some elements of the
tribal societies take to that path? They become an easy prey
to the Naxalite propaganda", he said asking the police
to have an in-depth study of the issue and devise strategies
to deal with this menace.
-PTI
