Desk Report:
In three South Asian countries—Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal—the governments have fallen in the face of mass protests led by youth. The Narendra Modi-led BJP government in India is quite concerned about such movements in the three neighboring countries. They are also in fear of such movements in the country. In this situation, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has ordered a study on the history, causes, and dynamics of all the movements that have taken place in India since 1974.
According to a report in the Indian Express, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has directed the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) of India to prepare a ‘Standard Operating Procedure or SOP’ as a step to prevent ‘mass movements by vested groups’ in the future.
For this work, the BPR&D has been asked to study in depth all the movements that have taken place since India’s independence, especially those that took place after 1974. This will analyse the causes of the agitation, the ‘financial aspects’, the ‘ultimate outcome’ and the ‘behind-the-scenes players’.
Amit Shah gave this instruction at the two-day ‘National Security Strategies Conference-2025’ organised by the Indian intelligence agency Intelligence Bureau (IB) in New Delhi in the last week of July.
A senior Indian government official, who did not wish to be named, told The Indian Express,
“The BPR&D has been specifically asked to analyse the causes, nature and outcome of these agitations so that the players behind them can be identified. So that a standard operating procedure can be developed to prevent future major agitations organised by vested interests.”
Following Shah’s instructions, a BPR&D team is being formed under the Union Home Ministry, which will coordinate with the state police departments. This will include old case files and Crime Investigation Department (CID) reports on them, another government official said.
Shah has directed the BPR&D to analyse the ‘financial aspects’ of the movement by involving financial investigation agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
In addition, with a view to rooting out terror financing networks, the ED, FIU-IND and CBDT have also been asked to formulate SOPs. They will analyse financial irregularities to identify unknown terror networks, their connections and plans.
It is also learnt that Amit Shah has directed the BPR&D to conduct a study on various religious gatherings in coordination with state police departments to understand the issues of ‘trampling to death’. Based on this, SOPs for monitoring and controlling gatherings will be prepared.
Sources further said that Amit Shah has asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Border Security Force (BSF) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to prepare separate strategies. This SOP will be applicable to deal with Khalistani extremism and general criminal activities in Punjab.
In this regard, another official said,
“The intelligence agencies need to form a team who knows the background of the issues related to Punjab well. So that different strategies can be prepared to deal with different problems.”
He also said that the NIA should develop new, innovative strategies to break the domestic links of the terror-crime nexus, which includes transferring those criminals to other districts to prevent them from operating the network from jails.
