Shah calls for regional approach to tackle drug smuggling, seeks BIMSTEC cooperation

New Delhi ( Raghwendra Pratap Singh) :

Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday called for a whole-of-region approach to tackle drug smuggling and sought cooperation from Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) member countries. He underlined that the illicit funds generated from drugs are used in financing organised crimes and terrorism.

India has always adopted a zero tolerance policy against terrorism. The trust in our cooperation is strengthened by the sense that the security mechanism of every member country becomes helpful in the security of other member countries.

Our mutual resolution should be to ensure that there is no scope or space for harbouring, recruiting, training, procuring resources, or carrying out activities against neighbouring nations in any part of the region…” he said at the first meeting of BIMSTEC home ministers in New Delhi.

BIMSTEC, a regional grouping, aims to promote economic and technical cooperation among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Shah, who last month announced the goal of dismantling drug networks to make India drug- free, reiterated that smugglers have changed their strategy and are using encrypted communication, social media, drones, cryptocurrency and the dark web.