India’s Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said that terrorism is the biggest form of human rights violation, and “it is absolutely necessary" to root it out.
His comments come a week after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington is “monitoring some recent concerning developments” in India, including “a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police, and prison officials”.
Speaking during the 13th Foundation Day of India's counter-terrorism law enforcement task force — the National Investigation Agency (NIA) — Home Minister Shah said the “Narendra Modi government has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism and is working to root out the menace from India."
Lauding the NIA's efforts in Jammu and Kashmir, he said, cases registered against terror funding in the union territory had helped to a great extent in curbing terrorism there.
Formed in 2009 after the terror attack in India’s financial capital Mumbai, the NIA has a conviction rate of 93 per cent. It has investigated over 400 cases since 2009 and filed charge sheets in at least 349 of them.
Shah also said that the federal government is working on a national database related to internal security covering bomb blasts, terror funding, counterfeit currency, narcotics and terrorism.
He said the database would help the central agencies and state police in investigations.