'PRAHAAR': Centre introduces India's first-ever counter-terrorism policy

The eight-page policy lays emphasis on the prevention of terror attacks, swift and proportionate response mechanisms, and strengthening coordination among government agencies.

• India unveils first anti-terror policy focusing on prevention
• Policy addresses threats from land, water, air, and cyber-attacks
• Emphasises swift response, coordination, and human rights

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The Centre on Monday released the country’s first-ever anti-terror policy, emphasising that other than terror sponsored from across the border, “criminal hackers and nation states continue to target India through cyber-attacks.”

The policy said that India faces terrorist threats on all three fronts — water, land and air — and capacities have been developed to protect the critical sectors of the Indian economy, including power, railways, aviation, ports, defence, space and atomic energy, from State/non-State actors.

The eight-page policy lays emphasis on the prevention of terror attacks, swift and proportionate response mechanisms, and strengthening coordination among government agencies.

It advocates a "whole-of-government" and "whole-of-society" approach, grounded in human rights and the rule of law, while also focusing on mitigating conditions that enable terrorism, including radicalisation.

The policy is "predicated on the prevention of terror attacks to protect Indian citizens and interests; responses, which are swift and proportionate to the threat posed; aggregating internal capacities for achieving synergy in a whole-of-government approach; human rights and 'Rule of Law' based processes for mitigation of threats; attenuating the conditions enabling terrorism, including radicalization; aligning and shaping the international efforts to counter terrorism; and recovery and resilience through a whole-of-society approach."

The policy states that India follows a proactive and intelligence-guided counter-terrorism strategy. It underlines the central role of the Multi Agency Centre (MAC) and the Joint Task Force on Intelligence (JTFI) functioning under the Intelligence Bureau (IB) for real-time intelligence sharing and coordinated action across the country.

As part of its counter terrorism strategy, the policy says India follows a proactive approach to prevent and counter terrorist threats.

The document said the ‘PRAHAAR’ policy is predicated on “prevention” of terror attacks to protect Indian citizens and interests, “responses” that are swift and proportionate to the threat posed, “aggregating” internal capacities for achieving synergy in a whole-of-government approach and “human rights and rule of law’ based processes for mitigation of threats.

The document made it clear that India “does not link terrorism to any specific religion, ethnicity, nationality or civilisation” despite a few countries in the region having “sometimes used terrorism as an instrument of State policy”.

(With agency inputs)