Amit Shah Orders Study Of All Protests Since 1974: Report

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has reportedly asked the Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D) to prepare a standard operating procedure (SOP) after studying all post-Independence protest, particularly after 1974, The Indian Express reported. The directive has allegedly been issued to analyse the reasons, “financial aspects”, final outcomes and “behind-the-scene players” of those protests.

The directions were issued at the two-day ‘National Security Strategies Conference 2025’ organised by the Intelligence Bureau in New Delhi in July. 

“The BPR&D has been specifically asked to analyse reasons, patterns and outcomes of those protests, including behind-the-scene players,” a senior government official said. “It has been directed that an SOP should be formulated based on the outcome of the study to prevent mass agitations by vested interests in the future,” the official told The Indian Express. 

According to the report, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has initiated the process of setting up a team which will coordinate with state police departments for old case files, including reports of their Crime Investigation Departments (CID). 

Shah has also asked the team to rope in financial investigation agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, Financial Intelligence Unit-India and Central Board of Direct Taxes to investigate the “financial aspects” of protests.

The agencies, including ED, FIU-IND and CBDT have also been directed to prepare an SOP to identify unknown terror networks, their linkages and designs through analysis of financial irregularities.

In addition, the Union Home Minister has also asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Border Security Force (BSF) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to formulate separate methodologies to deal with Khalistani extremism and general criminal activities in Punjab.

“The intelligence agencies should constitute a team of officers with good background knowledge of Punjab-related issues for developing a framework of different approaches to deal with these issues,” the official said. The NIA has also been asked to develop an out-of-box-approach or disrupting domestic nodes of the terror-criminal nexus, including shifting imprisoned criminals running their networks from jails to jails in other parts of the country.

According to reports, he has also tasked theBPR&D with coordinating with state police departments to conduct a study on various religious congregations. The objective is to understand the underlying causes of incidents such as stampedes and to develop a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for effectively monitoring and managing such gatherings.