NIA regional office opens in Lucknow
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday inaugurated the National Investigation Agency's (NIA) regional office and residential premises here. Speaking at the event, Adityanath said India had been at the receiving end of terrorism for long but now, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, "the nation has given a befitting reply to the perpetrators of extremism". "The NIA has effectively solved cases pertaining to terror activities," he added. The Chief Minister lauded the NIA for checking militant funding and tackling cases of fake currency. Adityanath said his government was trying to strengthen the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the police and called for close coordination between state and national intelligence agencies.
Rajnath Singh said the NIA, set up in 2009, worked very scientifically in probing terror cases and of the 165 matters brought before it, 95 had been successfully solved. Terming the NIA a "credible investigation agency", he said the regional office and the residential premises were the first of its type in the entire country. He also claimed that after the NIA's formation, terror cases in the northeast had come down by 40 per cent.
The Home Minister said thr Lucknow unit of NIA was probing 20 cases of terror activities, including blast cases in Patna, Bodh Gaya (both in Bihar) and Bijnor and Kanpur ISIS module cases.