Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of Bengal, won’t be able to attend Amit Shah’s conference on police modernization with home ministers this week in Surajkund, Haryana, but she will see him on November 5 at the Eastern Zonal Council meeting in Nabanna.
Shah will preside over the conference in Kolkata, which will discuss a variety of topics, including whether the NIA will be requested to look into cases of international smuggling and whether traffickers should face harsh penalties under UAPA. State governments have been consulted on this issue.
Banerjee is set to meet with Nitish Kumar when the chief ministers of Jharkhand, Bihar, and Odisha visit the state.
In addition to the completion of the eastern freight route, the EZC meeting is anticipated to concentrate on unresolved issues between these states, especially those linked to boundaries.
In 2018, Bengal convened a similar meeting there, with Rajnath Singh serving as the meeting’s chairman. Banerjee attended the event.
Currently, provisions of the IPC and the Customs Act deal with smugglers. According to sources, the NIA would be able to intervene after the UAPA was invoked. According to a representative, BSF typically filed accusations against traffickers at neighborhood police stations. Following the filing of an FIR, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System allows the home ministry to request that the NIA take over the investigation.
Bengal’s reaction to these recommendations is yet an open question. The CM had previously objected to the Centre’s plan to expand the BSF’s territorial control along the Bangladesh-India border.
According to a Nabanna officer, the decision to enlist the NIA in smuggling cases was made with political aspirations and was intended to target opposition leaders. He emphasized that although maintaining law and order was a governmental responsibility, the NIA may intervene directly if a scheduled offense occurred.
News Mania Desk
