Greater intelligence-sharing needed to prevent terror attacks: India

In the wake of the grisly Paris attacks, India has called for greater amount of intelligence- sharing among all countries and hoped that the world would unite against the menace of terrorism.

"India has always said that terrorism and anything to do with terrorism is a threat (to the world). India has always said that terrorism should never be used as a state policy by anybody," Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh told reporters on the sidelines of the Regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here.

Attending the two-day event in place of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who had to return mid-way from Dubai to New Delhi in view of the Paris terror attacks, Singh said India is concerned over spreading of terrorism, whether it is India or anywhere else in the world.

"We seriously condemn the incident that has happened in France. We are hopeful that everybody would unite together to fight against this kind of a menace," he said.

Responding to a question on the Paris attacks and its similarity with the Mumbai attacks, Singh said,"The lesson in Mumbai was a lesson for the rest of the world that things can happen. And it is now being proved what we have been saying right from that time."

"There should be greater amount of intelligence sharing amongst all the countries so that we can prevent a thing like this happening in rest of the world," Singh said.

Despite best of the efforts, it is literally impossible to prevent terrorists from carrying out such attacks, he said.

"You can work for 365 days a year, terrorists will find one day out of that. That day one does not know whether all your defence would be up or not. Fighting against this kind of a thing is a very difficult business. And that is why, it needs great amount of cooperation amongst all the countries in the world," he said.

Asked about Pakistan's state sponsoring of terrorism, Singh refused to comment.

When specifically asked about the US visit of Pakistan army chief Gen Raheel Sharif, Singh said it is up to the US to decide what is in its national interest.

"US maintains relationship with all the countries in the world. It deals with the countries as per its own state policy. I am quite sure, US is fully aware how things are in Pakistan. And I am sure they would take action as per their policies to deal Pakistan in a manner they feel fit," Singh said.

-PTI