Centre discusses blueprint to counter Islamic State, radicalism

New Delhi, Aug 1: The Union Home ministry on Saturday discussed issues related to interl security, threat from terrorism and ways and means to streamline the institutiol mechanisms for dealing with it.

"The meeting was held to streamline the institutiol mechanisms for sharing information and to adequately meet the threats from terrorism. It was decided to strengthen the capacity building of the police officers in states through training programmes, to be organised by central intelligence and security agencies," the ministry said in a release after the high-level meet.

Involvement of community elders, monitoring of radical social media platforms and real-time sharing of information through a central monitoring unit are a few steps government plans to take to prevent youths getting attracted to radical ideologies, such as that propagated by ISIS, sources said.

The meeting, chaired by union Home Secretary LC Goyal, was attended by Home Secretaries and DGPs of 12 states - Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telanga, Kartaka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Assam, Punjab, West Bengal and Delhi (Commissioner of Police).

"Instances of radicalisation of youths in some states were also discussed including counselling of such youths and their families," it said.

Without mentioning the looming threat from Islamic State (IS), a radical Islamic terrorist organisation, the official release said that appropriate measures on counter radicalisation were also discussed during the meeting.

"The meeting also discussed the modalities of alysing the suspected social media platforms run by terrorists and crimil outfits," it said.

Counter-radicalisation efforts would include counselling of youths, convincing community elders to persuade the younger generation to not get influenced by any extremist ideology besides others.

The focus would also be on how to quickly respond to any report of youths planning to join terror groups like ISIS and how to prevent Indian youths from coming under the sway of extremist doctrines, official sources said.

Nearly 10 states submitted their assessments to the Centre on the likely challenges posed by ISIS as well as on steps conceived or taken to counter these. Agencies