New Delhi To achieve swifter transmission of extradition and mutual legal assistance requests, which often remain pending for years, India should fund two Interpol projects – e-Extradition and e-MLA (mutual legal assistance), a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer has advocated during the recently concluded police conference, while adding that access of Interpol’s 19 databases should be extended to frontline law enforcement officers for quicker information and results.
Underlining that India’s statutory contribution to Interpol is very small compared to the size of the economy, this officer has suggested raising statutory contribution in Interpol from the current ₹3.92 crore to ₹7.9 crore (1 million Euros).
“Alternatively, India may fund one or two initiatives of Interpol. Till date, India has not funded any of the initiatives of Interpol. To increase our engagement with Interpol, we may explore the possibility of funding two important initiatives that enhance international cooperation and enable swifter transmission of requests for extradition and mutual legal assistance namely e-Extradition and e-MLA as they are awaiting funding,” he says in the paper, submitted in the Director General/Inspector General conference, which took place in Delhi from January 20 to 22.
The officer added that “India may consider funding these initiatives provided the US, where more than 85% servers are located, is part of the Pilot (project)”. The cost to India, he added, should be 3 to 5 million Euros.
On Interpol’s 19 databases, which have 124 million police records on crimes and criminals such as fingerprints, DNA, stolen motor vehicles, lost travel documents, child sexual abuse cases, foreign terrorists etc, the IPS officer has recommended that these databases should be extended beyond to the frontline officers. It currently can only be accessed by the CBI.
The nodal agencies of Interpol in 195 member countries are called NCBs; or CBI in India’s case.
“At present, Indian law enforcement agencies are not able to make full use of the 19 databases of Interpol as they can be accessed by CBI alone. Certain countries including USA, the UK have extended access to Interpol databases beyond its National Central Bureaus (NCBs) to frontline law enforcement officers, such as immigration (entry and exit points) and all local/regional law enforcement officers allowing them to search the databases within seconds. As Interpol systems are GDPR (general data protection regulation) compliant, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) and CBI may consider such an expansion,” this officer, who once headed NCB in CBI, wrote in the paper.
He has said that Interpol’s MIND/FIND (mobile/fixed Interpol network database), which screens people and documents at border crossings, can particularly be explored by the Bureau of Immigration for “real-time fugitive tracking”.
India has several requests related extradition and seeking information under MLAT (mutual legal assistance treaty) pending with several countries, including against Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, businessmen Mehul Choksi, Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi among others.
In a separate research paper, another officer suggested that the Union home ministry’s Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration and Tracking (IVFRT) portal, only accessible to the Bureau of Immigration (BOI), should be extended to the frontline law enforcement officers for quicker information and results.
IVFRT, operational since 2018, assists immigration officers in tracking the details of all foreigners visiting India. The identity of travellers is authenticated at the Indian missions abroad, Immigration Check Posts (ICPs) and Foreigners Registration Offices (FROs), and information such as hotel form, student form, arrival/departure data is stored in the IVFRT database.
The project seeks to interlink and optimize functions relating to immigration, visa issuance, registration of foreigners and tracking of their movements in India by covering 192 Indian Missions across the globe, 108 Immigration Check Posts (ICPs) in India, 12 Foreigners Regional Registration Officers (FRROs) and offices and more than 700 Foreigners Registration Officers (FROs), Superintendents of Police (SPs)/Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs) across the country.
However, this second officer, in his research paper, has argued that “access to IVFRT portal has been thus far very limited”. HT has reviewed these papers.
The number of visa and Overseas Citizen of India (IC) cards issued by India has increased from 4.44 million in 2014 to 6.46 million in 2019 and international traffic to and from India gas grown from 37 million to 75 miillion passengers in the last 10 years.
Citing these figures, this officer has suggested that “the outreach of IVERT portal should be percolated down to Superintendent of Police/Deputy Commissioner of Police level so that the district police, which is the backbone of tracking and monitoring of activities of foreigners in India can have real time access to all the relevant data regarding a foreign national in their jurisdiction”.
It was suggested at the conference that monitoring of overstaying foreign nationals should be done once a month by the state police headquarters to keep a check on their state wide movement. Further, the researching officers recommended identifying “nationwide immigration hot spots” in places like Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Punjab, etc, and “specific efforts should be made to control and monitor movement of migrants in these pockets”.
On the same subject, another officer has advocated creation of a dedicated unit in every district, on the lines of anti-human trafficking units, which shall work on detention and deportation of illegally overstaying foreigners. “Such unit (s) can carry out functions like tenant verification on leased premises, servant/domestic help verification among others,” it said.
It also suggests setting up a “national commission for identification and deportation of illegal immigrants and foreign nationals”. These research papers, although not mandatory to be posted, have now been removed by the IB from the concerned DG/IG conference website.
