India Brings Back 274 Fugitives Since 2021
Onlykashmir.in News Desk
India has brought back 274 fugitive criminals from 36 countries between 2021 and 2026, the Union Government said Tuesday, crediting the achievement to a coordinated, intelligence-led and technology-driven approach built under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the guidance of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Officials described the extradition drive as a marked departure from earlier decades, when successive governments lacked the political will to pursue absconding offenders with any urgency.
Before 2014, the country’s extradition framework had grown outdated, with treaties covering only 37 countries and no dedicated law to deal with economic fugitives or confiscate their assets. Between 2004 and 2013, India secured the extradition of just four fugitives a year on average, while 110 requests remained pending, hampered by incomplete documentation, slow processing and recurring legal hurdles such as double jeopardy and dual criminality.
To reverse this trend, the government enacted the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act in 2018 and, from 2020, took up the return of fugitives in mission mode. The NIA and UAPA amendment acts of 2019 widened enforcement beyond proscribed organizations to individual terrorists, handlers and funding networks based abroad. In 2024, three new criminal laws introduced provisions allowing trial in absentia for the first time, letting judicial proceedings continue even without the accused present in court.
Institutional coordination has been central to the effort. The launch of BHARATPOL in January 2025 integrated the CBI, state police headquarters and district police onto a single platform, connecting more than 1,400 units and cutting information sharing time between agencies to as little as three to ten days in some cases. The CBI has also set up a Special Global Operations Centre working in real time with Interpol, while Operation Trishul has used satellite inputs, surveillance and digital footprint analysis to geo-locate fugitives who had changed identities abroad.
The numbers reflect the scale-up: Interpol Red Corner Notices rose from 40 in 2022 to 182 already this year, with 401 issued over the past three years. Under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, authorities attached assets worth 17,874 crore rupees belonging to fugitives between 2019 and 2026. The extradition of Tahawwur Rana from the United States was cited as a landmark example of this sustained legal and diplomatic effort.
Officials noted the campaign has direct relevance to Jammu and Kashmir, where fugitives operating from abroad have historically sustained terrorism, narco-terrorism and cross-border support networks. A Standing Focus Group constituted under the Intelligence Bureau’s Multi Agency Centre in January 2026 now prioritises such cases, standardises dossiers and ensures follow-up with foreign partners, reflecting what officials called a whole-of-government approach to a threat they describe as an active operational concern rather than a closed chapter.
