``A network of criminal elements posing as businessmen or having links with business community is growing and they even have ominous international connections with anti-national elements,'' Advani said while addressing the 71st annual FICCI meeting here.

He said economic offences and corrupt business practices were a direct threat to national security because such offences needed protection sought by either corrupting law and order machinery or by aiding criminal elements. One such case brought to light by the government was now making newspaper headlines, he said in a veiled reference to the arrest of Romesh Sharma, an alleged aide of Dubai-based don Dawood Ibrahim.

``It is also well-known that the ISI makes use of such elements and of a weakened security system to carry out its destabilisation designs,'' he said. The Home Minister saidtrade and industry must create a business culture and ethos which leaves no scope for criminalisation and law-breaking.

``It is in your own collective and enlightened interest - not to speak of the long-term interest of the nation - that you do this,'' he said.