NIA cell to track IS to be set up

Hyderabad: The country’s premier investigation agency, the National Investigation Agency, is to have a dedicated cell to research trends and threats from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a global terrorist organisation, soon, said Union home minister Rajnath Singh.

The challenge in front of the NIA is the collection of evidence from foreign countries when there are links to cases from India.

“There are several instances where the links of terror cases are directed to foreign countries. In such cases, getting evidence is a problem. However, the NIA has so far managed to overcome the same with its coordination with other countries. The same coordination is present among the NIA and state agencies,” said the minister.

The professionalism of the agency in dealing with cases like terrorism, terror-funding and left-wing extremism can be seen in the success of getting a higher conviction rate.

“In the last 10 years, the NIA has registered about 250 cases. The conviction rate in the cases probed by NIA is 92 per cent which is higher than any other investigation agency across the world. It shows the professionalism of the officers of the NIA,” Mr Singh said, telling officials that the conviction rate should reach 100 per cent.

The minister said, “To fight emerging threats of ISIS, a dedicated research cell is being started at the NIA. Agency officials are also being trained in dealing with cyber crime. Terror funding is a major threat which the agency dealt with. It is NIA’s biggest achievements. Even the cases of fake Indian currency notes went down and the agency has to get the credit for it.”

He said that 100 new posts of various ranks have been created to increase efficiency and outcome.