'International investigative efforts needed to counter terrorism'

Observing that more international investigative efforts were needed to counter the rising threat of international terrorism and criminality, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Bob Paulson on Thursday here stressed on the need for the police forces to innovate and adapt to the changing world.

Paulson also said that he held discussions with Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Anil Sinha about opportunities for joint international investigative efforts.

"We are stuck in policing generally, we know how to catch crooks, how to collect evidence but as the threat of international terrorism and international criminality mounts and calls for international response, how prepared are our individual police organisations to take on an innovative approach to that," Paulson said.

"The director (Sinha) and I today talked about opportunities for joint international investigative efforts to face the common threat," said Paulson delivering the 17th D.P. Kohli Memorial Lecture here.

"Transnational terrorism and criminality are a challenge and the police forces need to adapt to the evolving situation and work on developing international cooperation," he said.

He also said that leadership was "central" to police forces and essential for maintaining public trust.

Speaking on the occasion, Sinha said that growing global connectedness of India was unfolding newer and more complex challenges for law enforcement in the country.

"Be it the white collar crimes of corruption and financial frauds, cybercrimes, terror related crimes or organized crimes, all are breaking out of national boundaries and carry a cyber component.

"Presently, we have nearly 392 investigation matters underway in over 66 countries and the International Component of investigations is expected to grow manifold in coming years," said Sinha.

"We have recognised the need to enhance investigation capacity in all emerging areas of investigation and forging partnership with law enforcement agencies of major countries," he said.

He also said that the CBI was in final stages of establishing three world class institutions -- International Centre for Excellence in Investigation (ICEI), a Centralized Technology Vertical (CTV) with advanced capacities in big data analytics, Forensic Accounting and Digital Forensics and a State of Art Forensic Science Laboratory covering all 17 forensic disciplines under one roof.

"Over the coming years, these institutions will furnish cutting edge knowledge support leading to a quantum leap in the human resource, technological and forensic capacity of CBI and will also be available to other law enforcement agencies of the country, South Asia and ASEAN Region," added Sinha.

--IANS

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