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Be ready to implement new laws, work on AI: Amit Shah tells top cops
Amit Shah said AI was as much a threat as it was an opportunity and urged the police to learn to use it to its advantage and prepare to deal with its adverse impact
NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday asked the police and intelligence leadership of the country to be ready to implement the recently introduced laws at the grass-root level to revamp the criminal justice system.
He also asked the police officers to focus on new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and push for the use of forensics to ensure speedy justice delivery and constitutional rights of the citizens. Shah was addressing the concluding session of the two-day National Security Strategy conference of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in Delhi.
The government on August 11 introduced three bills in Parliament that seek to replace the British-era Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Indian Evidence Act, an overhaul that Shah had declared would “transform our criminal justice system”.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and Bharatiya Sakshya Bill, 2023 were introduced in Lok Sabha on the last day of the monsoon session.
“Shah stressed upon the need to provide timely justice to the citizens and ensure a system that would guarantee constitutional rights to them. He urged the top police leadership to transform their approach in dealing with the country’s internal security problems. He laid emphasis on the use of modern technology in policing and suggested the implementation from lower police ranks of constabulary to the higher formations,” according to a statement issued by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) on Friday.
Citing the recent introduction of new bills in Parliament, Shah laid down a vision for revamping the entire criminal justice system.
“He urged the police officers that when the new laws are passed by the parliament, they should be ready to implement them at the grassroots level to revamp the criminal justice system,” the statement added.
Flagging the emergence of technological advancement in AI, Shah termed it “as a threat as much as an opportunity” and urged the police to learn to use it to its advantage even as it prepared to deal with its adverse effects.
People familiar with the conference said tackling cyber attacks at critical infrastructures was one of the key topics discussed during the conference, attended by the top brass of the intelligence and security community of the country.
Among those present at the conference were the chiefs of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), deputy national security advisors, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Intelligence Bureau, National Investigation Agency (NIA), central police forces and states’ police.
Officials said that during the past two days, the participants discussed various aspects of national security including border security, new trends in terrorism and insurgency activities in different parts of the country, use of Internet and AI by criminals and terrorists, activities of Khalistani operatives, smuggling of drugs and other prohibited items, role of state and non-state actors in anti-India campaigns, monitoring of social media, radicalisation and menace of drones at the Indo-Pakistan border.
In his address on Friday, Shah also exhorted the participants to work hard in the next 25 years to achieve the vision of PM Narendra Modi to make India a leading country by 2047. “While suggesting the importance of learning from other countries, he impressed upon the participants to set an example in the next 25 years so that people from other countries learn from the Indian example,” MHA said.
