New Delhi, Oct.22:  India will host the Second Meeting of SAARC Interior/Home Ministers, which will be preceded by the Second Meeting of SAARC Home Secretaries and Sixth SAARC Conference on Cooperation in Police Matters from October 23-25.

India, as host, will chair the meetings. All member States will participate in these meetings.  The newest member State of SAARC, Afghanistan, would be participating in the three meetings for the first time.

These meetings will continue the exchange of apex level ideas/perspectives on issues of criticality and work towards enhancement of cooperation in security management and related issues.

At the 14th SAARC Summit held in New Delhi, the Heads of Government emphasized the importance of increased cooperation in security related areas, especially the need to combat terrorism, narcotics and psychotropic substances, trafficking in women and children and other trans-national crimes.

They had also expressed their commitment to take every possible measure to prevent and suppress, in particular, financing of terrorist acts and counter trafficking of narcotic drugs and illicit arms.

Capacity building, institutional arrangements and multi-lateral agreements will be at the core of these deliberations at all three levels.  The forthcoming meetings are, thus, expected to deliberate on among others, a network of cooperation amongst police chiefs, SAARC visa exemption scheme, a Draft Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, greater strength to existing mechanisms of cooperation in drugs, terrorism and trafficking.

As SAARC member States are signatories to the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism and its additional Protocol and SAARC Convention on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, the deliberations are expected to witness increased dynamism within the existing and newly set up institutional mechanisms, namely, the SAARC Terrorism Offences Monitoring Desk (STOMD) and the SAARC Drug Offences Monitoring Desk (STOMD) flowing from these conventions. (ANI)