New Delhi: In a major development in the fight against organised crime and gangsters, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in collaboration with the Police Forces of Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh on Friday announced the establishment of a collective institutionalised mechanism for real-time as well as regular information sharing, coordinated action and operations against the gangster eco-system in the northern region.
The security agencies have 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 Territories.
It was further decided to hold monthly meetings of all the stakeholders to address the issue of organised crimes and criminals in these areas. These decisions were taken at a high-level Inter-State coordination meeting held in Panchkula in Haryana, under the chairmanship of NIA Director General Dinkar Gupta.
The meeting discussed the activities of leaders and members of organized criminal syndicates and groups operating in the northern states, and also the ongoing investigations in the various criminal cases connected with them. This was the second such meeting steered by the NIA DG for tackling the menace of organised criminal terror syndicates. The DG had initiated these meetings to collectively deal with such syndicates through sharing of findings and inputs among the various police agencies and forces.
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Understanding the need for collaborative action in combating organised crime, Gupta called for enhanced cooperation and information sharing among the NIA, Punjab Police, Chandigarh Police, and Haryana Police to effectively address the growing threat posed by these criminal syndicates, particularly in the northern region.
The NIA, which is investigating three such cases, against criminal terror syndicates, shared its findings and observations on the methodology adopted by the syndicates operating from jails. It 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.
Besides NIA DG, PK Agrawal, Director General of Haryana Police; Gaurav Yadav, Director General of Punjab Police, and Praveer Ranjan, Director General of Chandigarh Police, were present at the meeting. Special DGP (Internal security) Punjab RN Dhoke, ADGP CID Haryana Alok Mittal, ADGP Law and Order Haryana Mamta Singh, IG NIA Vijay Sakhare, IGP (Internal security) Punjab Nilabh Kishore, IGP Chandigarh Raj Kumar Singh, DIG STF Simardeep Singh, DIG NIA Amit Kumar, SP STF Waseem Akram and other police officers also participated in the high-level meeting.
Director General of Haryana Police PK Agrawal underlined the urgency of taking swift and decisive action to dismantle the networks of these criminal syndicates, disrupt their activities and ensure justice. Punjab DGP 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.
DGP Chandigarh 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. 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 and harbourers 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.
