Post 26/11, our Armed Forces and coastal security are still not fully equipped to meet terrorist strikes from across the border. When will things changeIJ
The attack which killed Sub-Inspector Shabir Ahmed, the Station House Officer of Chadoura town, on Monday, is a part of the escalation of terrorist strikes in Jammu & Kashmir since the end of 2012. A little more than two months earlier, on September 26, 12 persons, including a lt-Col of the Indian Army, died in two terrorist attacks on a police station in Kathua and an Army camp in Samba. These and several other terrorist strikes earlier have continued while the situation along the line of Control and the International Border with Pakistan has continued to be tense and been marked by clashes.
These attacks have to be viewed in the context of the scheduled American withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. While some American presence is expected in that country in the form of Special Forces and other troops and an Air Force contingent, one is not sure how the arrangements would work out, if at all. Whatever these are, all indications are that the departure of the Americans would be followed by Pakistan massively stepping up its unconventional war against India, culminating in an attack, like the one by tribal hordes backed by the Pakistani Army in 1947, that led to the first Kashmir war.
India will have to respond at two levels — that of counter-insurgency and conventional war, should the latter follow an intensification of the former. How well is it preparedIJ Intelligence, the most critical input in any counter-terrorism/insurgency effort, is crucial to the prevention and investigation of terrorist strikes and elimination of terrorist modules. Unfortunately, things are not reassuring here. Mr RPN Singh, Union Minister of State for Home, told Parliament in March this year that the Intelligence Bureau had 18,795 persons on its rolls against a sanctioned strength of 26,867. The overall strength of the Research & Analysis Wing is 40 per cent short of the required. The deficiency is particularly acute in the fields of area expertise, language skills and technologists who have a key role to play in modern intelligence gathering systems.
Major chinks remain in coastal security, the importance of which has been indelibly underlined by the fact that the 26/11 attackers came by the sea in the hijacked trawler Kuber. The Indian Coast Guard has written to the Union Ministry of Agriculture asking it to spell out clear rules regarding the issue of identity cards to fishermen operating along the coastline. Most fishing boats do not carry original registration documents. Sometimes photocopies of the same document are carried by several boats. Often, those manning the latter are illegal migrants whose backgrounds have not been checked. Worse, while security arrangements have improved since 26/11, gaps remain and hitches occur. For example, the CCTV camera overlooking the shoreline in the Budhwar Park area, the site of the terrorist landing on the fateful night, was reportedly not functioning on November 26 this year!
The hawala channels, through which money comes to terrorists, operate unhindered. The Air Force is short of deep penetration strike and interceptor fighter aircraft. The Army lacks enough officers, advanced artillery and ammunition. Worse, there is a paralysis in policymaking. Apart from its utterly weak-kneed approach toward Islamabad, the Government seems to be groping pathetically for a way forward. Nothing underlines this more than the presence of Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan, at Tehelka's Goa Think Fest. Will the grant of a visa to him not give the impression to terrorists that New Delhi is prepared to go to any length to woo Pakistan and the Taliban and that they only have to maintain the pressure to gain their objective which, in the first instance, is detaching Kashmir from IndiaIJ