New Delhi, 21 Mar : Shri Ashwini Kumar, Director, CBI and Head, National Central Bureau (NCB)- India, has said that ‘more and more crimes are becoming trans-national as most of the Cyber Crimes involve some part of investigation based abroad’. Shri Ashwini Kumar said this while inaugurating One-day 3rd Interpol Liaison Officers’ (ILOs) Conference here today at Vigyan Bhavan. ‘Therefore, a knowledge of rules and procedures for conducting such investigatiion through instruments such as Red Corner Notices, Letters Rogatory, Extradition, Deportation, Commissions for Examination of Witnesses, Utilisation of Video Conferencing for examination of witnesses by Commissions, etc., which still a few years back was considered a core area for officers working in Agencies such as CBI, now has become essential for most of the investigators at the cutting edge level’, he added. He further advised that the same role has to be performed by the ILOs in their respective states.
Shri Kumar also stressed that it needs to be kept in mind that whenever dealing with requests from foreign countries, apart from the legal issues and the policy of the Government, the larger perspective of national interest also assume significance. It is due to this that a coordinating role for dealing with such requests has been entrusted to a single Agency i.e. National Central Bureau or as is commonly understood as Interpol-India. He further elaborated that just as NCB-India works as a single contact point for India, for the rest of the World, similarly, the ILOs function as a single clearance windows for NCB-India vis a vis different states either for getting the foreign requests executed in a particular state or for getting requests from their respective states executed in other countries.
The one-day Conference was organised by CBI, which is the National Central Bureau of India and represents India in the Interpol. 22 ILOs, most of whom are Additional DsGP/IsGP (CID/Crime) of Police in States attended the Conference. They were given inputs on Interpol-Constitution and Structure & Functions of International Police Cooperation Unit of CBI; Investigation abroad, Letters Rogatory & Service of Judicial documents; Extradition Laws and Extradition Procedures.
As on date 187 countries are Members of Interpol. Interpol works on the basis of voluntary cooperation of Member States, which is its strength. The Interpol is doing a commendable role in providing a common platform to Member States to interact in areas of mutual interests, linking them on 24/7 basis through a secure network and tracking of fugitives through diffusion of notices such as Red Corner Notices. At present the six priority crime areas of Interpol are drugs & criminal organisations, financial and high-tech crimes, fugitives, public safety and terrorism, trafficking in human beings and corruption.
Interpol has also organised training facilities for the officers of Member States in emerging areas of crimes such as Cyber Crimes, Human Trafficking etc. Interpol organised a Train-the-Trainers Course on Cyber Crimes at the CBI Academy, Ghaziabad, in which police officers from States, CBI officials and six officers from foreign countries participated.