NIA teams up with Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh police to check organised criminal gangs

New Delhi, June 30 To dismantle the nexus between organised criminal gangs in the northern region and terror groups operating abroad, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said that it has initiated coordinated efforts with police forces of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to put a curb on them.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by the NIA Chief Dinkar Gupta which was also attended by the three police forces on Friday. During the meeting, Gupta stressed the need for collaborative action to combat organised crime.

"Enhanced cooperation and information sharing among NIA, Punjab, Chandigarh and Haryana Police will effectively address the growing threat posed by these criminal syndicates, particularly in the northern region," Gupta said in the meeting.

A NIA spokesperson in New Delhi said that during the meeting, it was decided to establish a collective institutionalised mechanism for real-time as well as regular information sharing and coordinated action and operations against the gangster ecosystem in the northern region.

The NIA official said that it was also decided to set up a ‘Joint Listing Committee’, with representative officers from the NIA and the three police forces, to list out and map the entire network of the various criminal syndicates active in the northern states and union territory.

"It was further decided to hold monthly meetings of all the stakeholders to address the issue of organised crimes and criminals in these areas," the official added.

The official said that this was the second such meeting steered by the NIA Director General for tackling the menace of the organised criminal terror syndicates.

The NIA Chief had initiated these meetings to collectively deal with such syndicates through sharing of findings and inputs among the various police agencies and forces.

The anti-terror probe agency which is investigating three such cases against criminal terror syndicate, also shared its findings and observations on the methodology adopted by the syndicates operating from jails.

NIA emphasised the need for fast tracking of trials against these gangsters as an effective tool to tackle the problem, along with the need for a witness protection plan, the official said.

Meanwhile, Haryana Director General of Police (DGP) P.K. Agrawal underlined the urgency of taking swift and decisive action to dismantle the networks of these criminal syndicates, disrupt their activities and ensure justice.

Even Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav emphasised that international liaison and cooperation with LEAs in foreign countries is essential to extradite and deport active leaders and members based abroad in various countries while Chandigarh DGP Praveer Ranjan highlighted close inter-state coordination and joint operations between police forces of affected states as the criminal syndicates were operating all over, including Chandigarh.

Interventions required at both the structural level as well as the operational level to dismantle the terror syndicate’s ecosystem were discussed threadbare, and it was decided to formulate an institutionalised mechanism for timely sharing of actionable inputs with all the stakeholders, the official added.

During the meeting, discussions were also held on activities of leaders and members of organised criminal syndicates and groups operating in the northern states and the ongoing investigations in the various criminal cases connected to them.

The growing nexus between criminals and gangsters, with their inter-state linkages and conflicts, has become a cause for concern for the northern states.

The foot soldiers, recruits, harbourers etc. of these criminal gangster-syndicates are spread across the states of north India, requiring a coordinated and synergised effort by the police of different states to deal with them effectively, the agency said in the statement.

--IANS