CHANDIGARH: After the November 10 Red Fort blast that killed 15 people and the exposure of a Faridabad “white-collar terror module’’ linked to the attack, the Haryana Police has revived and fast-tracked its long-pending plan to set up an Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) focused on Islamic extremist factions and Khalistani separatist networks.

The ATS will prioritise counter-terror operations across the National Capital Region (NCR), covering fourteen Haryana districts, including Gurugram, Faridabad, Sonepat and Jhajjar, areas repeatedly flagged in national security alerts.

Sources said the dormant proposal has now been pushed into action. The planned ATS will be equipped with three integrated wings, intelligence gathering, complex investigations and field operations, modelled on other elite units in the country. Officials said the squad will concentrate on emerging threats from Islamic extremists, Khalistani outfits and nodes of left-wing extremism.

Officials said the ATS marks a generational shift in the state’s counter-terror approach by integrating intelligence, investigation and operational capacity into a single, high-tech framework.

“The commandos at the ATS’ disposal will be trained for precision operations based on information from field and digital surveillance,” said a senior police officer, highlighting the unit’s tech-driven vision.

A senior official said the ATS headquarters may be set up in Panchkula or Gurugram to ensure synergy with NCR-focused operations and proximity to national agencies. The unit will employ advanced surveillance tools and analytic systems to monitor both online and offline spaces for early signs of mobilisation. Each of the more than 150 police stations in NCR districts will assign a dedicated “security agent’’ for daily terror-intelligence collection under the direct supervision of a senior officer.

Speaking to the TNIE, Haryana DGP O P Singh said, “Our effort is to scan every layer, analogue and digital, for the earliest signs of mobilisation. We want to move from reactive policing to proactive, intelligence-led disruption of threats.”