Terror threats to be overcome at all costs: Govt

NEW DELHI: Branding terror groups operating in Pakistan as "dark forces", Government today vowed to overcome their threats to this country "at all costs" and got full backing of the Chief Ministers who were on the "same page" in the fight against terrorism.

Expressing concern over increase in infiltration attempts from across the border, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the Centre and the states should launch coordinated efforts to tackle internal security threats.

Addressing the Chief Ministers' Conference on Internal Security, the Prime Minister identified left-wing extremism, cross-border terrorism and insurgency, besides attempts to flare up communal tension as challenges for internal security which he described as a "critical" issue.

He said hostile groups and elements operate from across the border to perpetrate terrorism and Jammu and Kashmi faces the brunt of this.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, in his opening remarks, referred to the meeting of terror groups like Lashker-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen in Muzzafarabad in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir on February four and called them as "dark forces" which are "implacably" opposed to the country. He asserted that they would be defeated whenever confronted.

Later talking to reporters, Chidambaram said all state governments and UT administrations, irrespective of political parties, were on the "same page."

"There is not a single discordant note today in the conference. That itself is an achievement. It means that the whole nation and especially those incharge of the governance are responsible are responding in the only manner, the way they should respond, namely in a spirit of unity.

"That itself, I think is a big message to all those who challenge India's internal security," he said.