Unified agency mooted for cross-border crimes

India should have Integrated Law Enforcement Centres (ILECs) on all its borders on the lines of the United States’ Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the UK’s Border Agency and the European Union’s Frontex to deal with cross-border crimes including infiltration, terrorism, smuggling of drugs, cattle, fake currency, arms, etc., the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) has recommended to the Centre.

In a detailed report, prepared by IPS officer Santosh Mehra (additional director general – BPRD) and submitted recently to the ministry of home affairs, it was stated that the ILECs, working inside the existing Integrated Check Posts, will have the mandate to register, investigate and dispose of all types of cross-border crimes with jurisdiction clearly defined and coinciding with government regulations with respect to border guarding forces. They will maintain a wealth of cross-border crime data and process it for short-, medium- and long-term trends. “Various factors affecting border security, such as political, economic, social, technological and legal environments etc. will be monitored. The data will be collated from different stakeholder agencies, mass-and-social-media, as well as cross-border sources,” according to the report, reviewed by HT. Subsequently, the ILECs will establish a situation room. “On the basis of timeseries data, the trends of bordercrimes in a particular sector of border will be analyzed and utilized for planning routine operations by border guarding forces,” the report said. It has been recommended that each ILEC can have small self-sustaining investigative units of Customs, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), National Investigation Agency (NIA), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), local police, Anti-Trafficking (Human) Cells, Intelligence Bureau (IB), Special

Bureau of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and wildlife wing of ministry of environment, apart from officials from border guarding forces. Currently, all these agencies work in silos when it comes to border crimes. “There are different agencies active on (India’s) land borders operating within the silos of their specific mandate striving for agency[1]specific micro-level optimization with lesser degree of inter-agencies cooperation, coordination and complementarity. In fact, many a time, inter agencies competition leads to sub-optimal outcome at national level. There are instances of both gaps as well as overlapping in the role, jurisdiction and working of the agencies,” the report said. Citing examples of the US and Europe, the BPRD pointed out that following the 9/11 attacks, the US underwent the biggest government reorganisation by merging 22 agencies from different departments (equivalent to ministries in India) into Department of Homeland Security.