The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) has recommended that 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.
- The ILECs will deal with cross-border crimes including infiltration, terrorism, smuggling of drugs, cattle, fake currency, arms, etc..
- According to the Hindustan Times, the detailed report prepared by IPS officer Santosh Mehra (additional director general – BPRD) has been submitted recently to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
Integrated Law Enforcement Centres (ILECs)
- ILECs, working inside the existing Integrated Check Posts (ICPs), will have the mandate to register, investigate and dispose of all types of cross-border crimes with jurisdiction clearly defined.
- 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.
- The ILECs will establish a situation room, where on the basis of collected, collated and analysed information from various sources, near real-time situation of the borders will be built up.
- On the basis of continuous inflows of information, such situation will be updated.
- 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.
(Source: The Hindustan Times)
