Home Secretary Bhalla inaugurates 8th Interpol Liaison Officers’ conference

New Delhi, March 22: Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Tuesday said the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued comprehensive guidelines on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters. Inaugurating the one-day 8th Interpol Liaison Officers’ Conference, organized on a virtual platform at CBI Headquarters, Bhalla said the guidelines provide a detailed process for seeking assistance from abroad by sending Court-issued Letter of Request and also the MHA-issued Mutual Legal Assistance Requests. The conference was organized by CBI, which is the National Central Bureau (NCB) for INTERPOL in India. The theme of ILO’s conference was ‘Tracking Crime and Criminals Globally’. The Home Secretary said the guidelines have also provided a detailed outline for examination of witnesses using the latest technical means. “During the last two decades, rapid technological transformations have increased the complexity of police investigations and enhanced the need for international assistance in criminal matters,” he said. Having an effective international cooperation mechanism, Bhalla said both through formal channels such as MLAT & LR and informal channels like INTERPOL has become very important in the present scenario. “ILO’s play a key coordinating role in execution of Letters of Request and Mutual Legal Assistance Requests from other countries which are forwarded to them for execution,” he added. Subodh Kumar Jaiswal, Director, CBI, emphasized that CBI as a premier investigative agency has substantial experience in investigating complex crimes with international linkages. “Digital evidence is getting primacy for successful investigation and prosecution of criminal offences,” said Jaiswal. “A series of global networks of child sexual exploitation have been dismantled successfully in the recent past. The Interpol channels have been used to share information for parallel action across the globe in different countries,” he added. Stating that there is global disbursal of crime, criminals, suspects, conspirators, abettors, witnesses and victims, Jaiswal underlined that law enforcement agencies globally cannot work in silos or work in isolation, especially when criminal elements are escalating cooperation through the use of technological platform like darknet, crypto currency and encrypted communications. He said the challenges posed by online radicalization, international terror network and organized crime, transnational crimes and cyber-enabled financial crimes require very coordinated and parallel actions to take down such networks. “We are working very closely with international law enforcement agencies to geo-locate criminals, fugitives and for their return to India,” Jaiswal added. (UNI)