Let us show some intelligence in controlling terror

Digvijaya Singh's Blog | 2011 Sep 14

Extreme religious fundamentalism is one if the root cause of terrorism in urban areas. More so after the communal divide in the 90s.

Left Wing Extremism is ideological and more in the rural areas . Both need different strategies but unfortunately we haven't been able to build a strong Intelligence Network in the country for both.

In MP when I took over as Chief Minister in 1993 we had acute communal divide and every few weeks we had communal riots . To me this was a greater political challenge than LWE.

We came down heavily against Jamiat Islami/SIMI on one side and Bajrang Dal/VHP/RSS on the other side. Once a clear signal was given not to spare any one indulging in act of provocation Police Force kept an eye on such elements and acted promptly with the result there was not a single serious communal riot in my tenure of 10 years.

In today's National context we have to look at the issue of Intelligence, afresh.

Police to people ratio is one of the lowest in our country . We have to go for a fresh recruitment at all levels in the State and Centre . Recruitment of IPS was slashed down from 85 to 36 during LK Advani's tenure as Home Minister in 1998. Now I believe it has been restored.

We have to look at the demographic profile of the Uniform Force . There are very few Muslims in the Police Force in the State and the Intelligence Bureau particularly at the Constable and Head Constable level, the cutting edge . Our Uniform Force hasn't been able to instil confidence among the Muslims and therefore we are not getting any intelligence input from this section.

A humble request to media - don't rush for breaking news on un substantiated reports after a terror attack. This has really shaken the confidence of the Muslim community.

We have to reach out to the Muslim community to win their confidence particularly the lower middle class professionals in the Muslim community. The doctors, advocates, notaries, retired teachers and others, the respected sections in the society.

We have to look at the behavioral aspect in Intelligence gathering of a policeman in their training module.

We haven't been able to install e-borders as yet. David Headley entered India more than 5 times and yet we couldn't keep a track on him.

Mohammad Athar involved in 9/11 attack in US was given a green card after the incident! This wouldn’t have been possible if the software for e-border was installed.

Training of the personnel in Intelligence Agencies has to be updated regularly with ever changing technology.

Procedure for procurement of equipment for intelligence agencies to keep pace with the technology has to be different from the routine procurement procedures . We can't procure such equipment on the basis of being L1!

State and Central Agencies don't share information most of the time. One of the ex-DIBs has gone on record that the government had been alerted nine months before hostilities broke out in Kargil.

Different Counter Terrorism Centres operate with in their cocoon and the National Counter Terrorism Centre announced by Chidambaram in 2008 is yet to be created.

We already have a National Commission Report and I believe 10 different committee reports on Police Reform with us on which we haven't acted in spite of the Court order.

We haven't been able to institutionalize the concept of community policing mentioned in the Police Commission Report . This can be a very effective source of Intelligence gathering

We have a huge force of private security personnel who can with a little bit of training can be a fairly reliable source of intelligence input.

We should also institutionalize regular security audit of public places. There was similar incident in Delhi High Court some times back. If there was a regular security audit may be this attack could have been avoided.

Involvement of Col Purohit and Major Upadhyaya officers of Military Intelligence in terrorist activity is a matter of serious concern. Shouldn't we purge such elements who have infiltrated our uniform force?

What we need now is a comprehensive strategy to improve our Intelligence Network at the State and Central level.

And finally, one thing, which I haven't understood - who is responsible for internal security in our country – the Union Home Minister or the National Security Advisor?