Aimed at achieving mutual coordination, sharing intelligence and information pertaining to Left extremists, terrorism and other crimes, a conference of director generals of police of Southern states got underway here on Wednesday.
The one-day conference, organised by the Andhra Pradesh police, was attended by Kerala DGP Jacob Punnoose, DGP CID of Karnataka D.V. Guru Prasad, Tamil Nadu DGP TMT Latika Saran and other senior police officers of the four Southern states.
“We will be discussing on issues of tackling Left-wing extremism, terrorism, video-piracy, circulation of fake Indian currency notes, organised criminal networks dealing with narcotics and psychotropic substances, anti-human trafficking and immigration frauds besides discuss on steps to be taken on execution of NBWs pending in these states,” state DGP R.R. Girish Kumar, said after the inauguration of the conference.
Mr Kumar said the Popular Front of India, a fundamentalist organisation responsible for hacking off the hand of a professor in Kerala, recently tried to create unrest on communal front in Andhra Pradesh.
“It appears that PFI has become active in Andhra Pradesh, as its posters were found pasted in Hyderabad prior to Bonalu festival. Besides its members also held dharnas in Kurnool and Nellore districts," Kumar said.
He stressed on the need to connect all the Fingerprint Bureaus of southern states to track criminals and detect cases that would also enable exchange of data among the neighbouring states.
Since a large number of pilgrims from Andhra Pradesh visit Sabarimala (in Kerala), a decision on deploying the state police personnel for bandobast duties from 2010 is being finalised and a detailed proposal from Kerala is awaited for formulating the methodology, he said.
“The conference will act as a common platform to evolve common strategies through coordinated means and better shape the police in southern states to handle these problems,” Kumar said.
Earlier, Andhra Pradesh home minister P. Sabitha Indra Reddy, after inaugurating the conference, suggested for a joint “Nakabandi” operations in the border areas of the neighbouring states to nab wanted criminals and to hold half-yearly meetings of SPs of border districts.
On the lines of Tamil Nadu, the Andhra Pradesh government is also contemplating to bring the video-pirates under the AP Goonda Act, she said, adding a Cyber Academy will also be set up in the state soon.