Lack of one central counter-terror agency, biggest hurdle to fight terrorism: NSA Ajit Doval

National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval on Monday said that one of the biggest hurdles in fighting terrorism is the lack of one central counter-terrorism agency and also that various agencies the Army, Intelligence Bureau, RAW and the NIA were "not working in-tandem".

Doval was speaking at the two-day NIA's national conference of chiefs of Anti-Terrorism Squad and Special Task Force (STF) that began here on Monday.

He asserted that that "physical action" against terrorists, "intelligence" gathering and "investigation" of terrorism cases were not in tandem with each other. He also said that Centre lacks a "one single counter-terrorist" agency that merges all the three components (physical action, intelligence and investigation).

"I am happy that many states have ATS, STF and other specialised agencies that have a dual advantage. It has been my personal view that there could be one single counter-terrorist agency which could have all the three components integrated and merged but for some reasons that doesn't happen," said Doval.

"But in the states, their STF are collecting some amount of intelligence, taking physical action and if they contribute to the investigation of the cases, probably that helps," said Doval.

"Physical action only counters what is in the present while what happens in future is decided by what the course of the investigation is, what happens in court-of-law as the terrorists have to be established as criminals," said the NSA.

The top NIA official said the problem in fighting terrorism is that these three silos are not in tandem and do not merge with each other.

"They work not in tandem but separately even when they work very efficiently. What Army might be doing in Jammu and Kashmir, or IB or RAW doing somewhere or NIA is doing, probably where is the connect?" he asked.

Doval also hit out at Pakistan for using terrorism as an instrument of the state policy.

"If a criminal has the support of a state, it becomes a great challenge. Some of the states have mastered this, in our case Pakistan has made it as an instrument of its state policy," said Doval.

The National Security Advisor also commended the impact that NIA has been able to make against terrorism in Kashmir is more than any other agency.

"One of the biggest pressures that has come on Pakistan today is because of the proceedings of Financial Action Task Force (FATF), it has created so much pressure on them that probably no other action could have done," he added.