Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated a national conference on "PRAHAAR – National CT Policy and Strategy" in New Delhi on 28 September 2026 and launched a new Extradition Portal to speed up the return of fugitives from abroad. PRAHAAR is India's national counter-terrorism policy, launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 23 February 2026, and it rests on seven pillars whose initials form the name. Shah asked for the strategy to be institutionalised for the next ten years and carried down to the police station level. For exams, this is a core internal-security topic linking policy, UAPA and extradition law.
On 28 September 2026, Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated a national conference titled "PRAHAAR – National CT Policy and Strategy" in New Delhi. At the same event he launched a new Extradition Portal meant to synergise and speed up efforts to bring fugitives back to India. The conference reviewed how PRAHAAR, launched on 23 February 2026, is being implemented by central and state agencies. Shah asked for the strategy to be institutionalised for the next ten years, with an automated response mechanism at every operational level.
The conference was held in New Delhi on 28 September 2026. New Delhi hosts the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is the nodal ministry for internal security, and the headquarters of the National Investigation Agency and the Central Armed Police Forces. The policy itself was launched from the capital on 23 February 2026.
PRAHAAR continues this line by adding a policy layer above the existing statutes, instead of creating a new law.
India's approach is close to the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which is also built on prevention, capacity-building, rights protection and addressing conditions conducive to terrorism. India is a member of the Financial Action Task Force, the global standard-setter on terror financing, and PRAHAAR's aim of denying terrorists access to funds tracks those standards. Compared with many countries that rely only on emergency legislation, India is combining a permanent statute, a dedicated central investigation agency and now a written policy document.
Core Concept: India's counter-terrorism legal and institutional framework
Q1. Which ministry launched the PRAHAAR national counter-terrorism policy and strategy? [Easy]
A) Ministry of Defence
B) Ministry of Home Affairs
C) Ministry of External Affairs
D) Ministry of Law and Justice
Answer: B
Explanation: PRAHAAR was launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 23 February 2026.
Q2. How many pillars does the PRAHAAR strategy rest on? [Easy]
A) Five
B) Six
C) Seven
D) Nine
Answer: C
Explanation: PRAHAAR has seven pillars, and their initials together form the word PRAHAAR.
Q3. The Extradition Portal launched on 28 September 2026 is intended mainly to: [Moderate]
A) issue emergency travel documents to Indians abroad
B) speed up the return of fugitives from foreign countries
C) register first information reports online
D) maintain a national database of prison inmates
Answer: B
Explanation: The portal was launched to synergise and speed up efforts to bring fugitives back to India.
Q4. Between 2019 and 2026, how many fugitive criminals were brought back to India, and from how many countries? [Moderate]
A) 188 fugitives from 26 countries
B) 288 fugitives from 36 countries
C) 350 fugitives from 15 countries
D) 400 fugitives from 40 countries
Answer: B
Explanation: A total of 288 fugitive criminals were returned to India from 36 countries in that period.
Q5. The Shahzad Bhatti network was declared a terrorist organisation under which law? [Moderate]
A) National Security Act, 1980
B) National Investigation Agency Act, 2008
C) Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967
D) Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002
Answer: C
Explanation: The network was banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, which is the statute used to declare terrorist organisations.
Q6. Which of the following is NOT one of the seven pillars of PRAHAAR? [Tricky]
A) Human rights and rule of law based processes
B) Attenuating conditions enabling terrorism
C) Recovery and resilience
D) Nationalisation of private security agencies
Answer: D
Explanation: The seven pillars are Prevention, Response, Aggregating internal capacities, Human rights and rule of law, Attenuating conditions, Aligning international efforts and Recovery and resilience.
Q7. Amit Shah called for institutionalising the PRAHAAR strategy for a period of: [Tricky]
A) 3 years
B) 7 years
C) 10 years
D) 15 years
Answer: C
Explanation: He asked that PRAHAAR be institutionalised for the next 10 years, with implementation down to police station level.
Q8. Which set of figures correctly describes the action taken against the Shahzad Bhatti network? [Tricky]
A) Over 100 FIRs across 15 states and 350 arrests
B) Over 350 FIRs across 10 states and 100 arrests
C) 40 FIRs across 15 states and 288 arrests
D) 100 FIRs across 36 states and 40 arrests
Answer: A
Explanation: More than 40 modules were dismantled, over 100 FIRs were registered in 15 states and 350 persons were arrested.
PYQ 1:
The Extradition Portal launched in September 2026 operates within the framework of which Indian statute?
A) Passports Act, 1967
B) Extradition Act, 1962
C) Foreigners Act, 1946
D) Emigration Act, 1983
Answer: B
Explanation: Surrender of fugitives to and from India is governed by the Extradition Act, 1962; the portal is an administrative tool over this law.
PYQ 2:
Consider the following statements:
PRAHAAR was launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs in February 2026.
Prevention is one of the seven pillars of PRAHAAR.
The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was enacted in 1967.
Which of the above statements is/are correct?
A) 1 only
B) 1 and 2 only
C) 2 and 3 only
D) All of the above
Answer: D
Explanation: All three are correct. PRAHAAR was launched on 23 February 2026 by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Prevention is its first pillar, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act dates from 1967.
PYQ 3:
Assertion (A): A national counter-terrorism strategy in India has to be implemented largely through state police forces.
Reason (R): Police and public order are subjects in the State List of the Seventh Schedule.
A) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
B) Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
C) A is true but R is false
D) A is false but R is true
Answer: A
Explanation: Because police and public order sit in the State List, the Union can frame policy but depends on state forces to execute it, which is why PRAHAAR is being taken to police station level.
Question 1 (150 words): Examine how the PRAHAAR strategy attempts to bridge the federal division of powers in India's internal security architecture.
PRAHAAR bridges the federal divide by acting as a policy umbrella rather than a new law, leaving the actual policing to the states while standardising what that policing must achieve. Police and public order are State List subjects, so the Union cannot direct a constable; it can, however, set common goals, share intelligence and fund capacity. That is precisely the design of the third pillar, aggregating internal capacities.
The 28 September 2026 conference showed the mechanism in practice. Police chiefs of 15 states and Union Territories sat alongside the Union Home Secretary and the heads of the Central Armed Police Forces, so that a module running across several states could be treated as one investigation. The Shahzad Bhatti case, with over 100 FIRs in 15 states, is the test case.
The way forward is to make joint standard operating procedures binding at the police station level, so that coordination does not depend on personal equations between officers.
Question 2 (250 words): "India's counter-terrorism response has moved from statute-led reaction to policy-led prevention." Discuss with reference to PRAHAAR and India's extradition record.
For decades India's counter-terrorism response was built almost entirely on statutes and agencies created after an attack. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 gave the state a banning power, the National Investigation Agency Act of 2008 followed the Mumbai attacks, and the 2019 amendment to the UAPA extended designation to individuals. Each step was a legal response to a shock, and none of them told the system what to do before the shock arrived.
PRAHAAR, launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 23 February 2026, changes the sequence. Its first pillar is Prevention, not Response, and its fifth pillar attacks the conditions that let terrorism take root by targeting funds, weapons and safe havens. The fourth pillar insists on human rights and rule-of-law procedure, which matters practically as well as morally, because defective procedure loses cases in court.
The international pillar is where the shift is easiest to measure. Between 2019 and 2026, 288 fugitive criminals were returned to India from 36 countries, and the Extradition Portal launched on 28 September 2026 digitises that pipeline. A fugitive who can be brought home is a deterrent to the next financier.
Challenges remain. Policing is a State subject, so uneven state capacity will produce uneven results, and a ten-year institutional framework needs stable funding across governments. The balanced way forward is to pair the portal with more extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties, and to audit the human rights pillar as strictly as the response pillar.