NEW DELHI: The government said in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that there has been a substantial decrease in hinterland and cyber crimes in the country and adequate infrastructure has recently been provided to the national anti-terror probe agency National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Responding to a question, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai informed that with effective measures taken by the NIA, the hinterland and cyber crimes have come down to zero now.
In the year 2013, there were four terror incidents in which 23 people were killed and over a hundred injured, the Minister said, adding that since then no terror incident has been reported in the hinterland areas of the country.
There has been a notable decline in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) related violence by 80 per cent with a sharp decrease in their footprints. "In 2010, a total of 95 districts were affected with the LWE which came down to 53 districts in 2020 and there has been a decline of 23 per cent in these 53 districts in the 2021, " Rai further said.
He also said that a special LWE cell has been constituted in the Ministry of the Home Affairs.
The minister also said that sufficient infrastructure support has been provided to NIA and under the amended NIA Act, now an individual can also be declared as terrorist and the central probe agency can go abroad to investigate the terror links.
Stating that cyber crimes are taken very seriously by the government, Rai said that the IT professionals have been appointed in the NIA and with its active and effective investigation, there has been a notable decline in the cyber crimes in India. Now the NIA has its branch offices in 12 places in the country, he added.
The Minister also said that under the amended the provisions in the NIA Act 2020, the NIA DG has been given the power to confiscate the accused's property and special courts have been designated for for quick and speedy trials of the cases.
Earlier, under NIA Act only an organisation was declared as terror outfit but now an individual can also be designated as a terrorist.