By IANS
New Delhi : Against the backdrop of the serial blasts that ripped through three cities in Uttar Pradesh last month, the government is convening a chief ministers’ conference later this month to discuss ways to shore up the country’s internal security machinery.
“We are planning to have it (meeting) in the third week of this month and Home Minister Shivraj Patil will give a detailed picture of the challenges we face at home,” said a home ministry official.
In the past two years, at least 434 people have died in terror bombings in India.
The multiple attacks that ripped through civil court premises of three cities in the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, was the sixth major attack this year.
Six blasts went off in the cities of Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi within five minutes of one another, killing at least 13 people.
States affected by Maoist violence are expected to apprise the central leadership about the growing violence and the steps being initiated to contain the threat.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has on several occasions called for superior intelligence capabilities that could prove as timely alerts to impending threats.
In fact, during the annual meeting of Directors General of Police and Inspectors General of Police in October, Manmohan Singh pointed to the global face of terrorism and how police forces needed to go far beyond conventional responses in facing terrorist threats.
Detailing the brazenness of terror attacks in recent months, including the twin blasts in Hyderabad that killed over 40 people in August, violent acts in Assam and the rise in Maoist violence, Singh reiterated that such incidents should not only prove as a wake-up call but strengthen the resolve to improve the internal security machinery.
Following the Uttar Pradesh blasts, Patil, too, had maintained in parliament the imperative need for the state governments to beef up their special branches, fill up vacancies in their respective police forces to improve policing and boost intelligence sharing mechanisms.
Opposition ruled states, including Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, are expected again to press for Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) like anti-terror law, which the Bharatiya Janata Party insists is the best remedy to deal with terrorist activities in India. But the government has already rejected this move.