Homegrown terror bigger threat: PM

India faces a bigger threat from homegrown terrorism than from foreign militant outfits, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday. HT Correspondent reports.

India faces a bigger threat from homegrown terrorism than from foreign militant outfits, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday.

HT Image

He said there were apprehensions that this terrorism coulc become an intruding problem; the PM talked the need to devise strategies to deal with the problem "in a sensitive manner".

"Some misguided elements of our society take to that path; I think we have to tackle this problem with all the sensitivity it requires," Singh said while addressing Indian Police Services probationers here.

"Handling terrorism driven by outside forces or sent to India is easy, but that’s not the case with the terror modules found within the country," he added.

Though he did not name any outfits, his comments come in the backdrop of a rise in internal terror threats from outfits like the Indian Mujahideen and Students'Islamic Movemnet of India (SIMI). Right-wing Hindu terror outfits have also surfaced in the past few years.

The PM also showed concern over the increasing crime against women and the elderly in urban areas. He said science, economics and sociology needed to be combined to tackle these problems.

In a message to the young officers, Singh linked law and order with the pace of economic development.

He also talked of the "dangers of development if not equitably distributed".

"Even when we are generating growth rates of 8-9% per annum, there are people who believe they are left out," the PM said, terming it as one of the reasons for the crest in crime graph.