Strengthening Internal Security

What should be India's response to terrorism?. There are two ways to intiate a response.

1. Reforms within Indian Systems especially Internal Security
2. Military Response to the threat.

I believe that both these steps are very important. The Indian government has announced some steps to strengthen Internal Security. I would like to outline those steps first.

The few initial steps that have been proposed are

Setting up of National Investigation Agency (NIA)

This organization is supposed to be modelled along the structure of FBI in America. An independent director with overarching power over all states.

I want to provide a preliminary background on the need of NIA in India. In India, Law and Order is a state subject and any central investigating agency can operate in a state only at the request of state governments. In principle this is a very good idea and encourages federalism in the system, but an issue like terrorism cannot be handled at the state level. The footprints of terrorism spread across states and sometimes into Pakistan. A state government does not have the reach and resources to handle a sophisticated crime such as terrorism. An NIA will be able to piece together all the information and act promptly against terrorism and break the network of terrorists within the country.

Now, Inorder to save the NIA from becoming a clone of CBI, we need to provide this investigating agency with overarching power to investigate across all states for organised crime, terrorism, money laundrering and fake currency cases. So a special National Security Law should be passed that gives broad power to NIA to investigate suspects and to make confession in front of police admissible in court. There is a proposal to even include Narco-analysis test as admissible evidence, though I am not particularly sure that Narco-analysis test should be admissible in the court of law.

We will have to track this development very seriously and ensure that NIA is set-up right and it gets the right power to set-up an infrastructure across the country to smoke out terror cells and arrest terror suspects aggressively.

Police Reforms

Police reforms in the most important problem that has to be tackled. We have read reports of complete inaction of Mumbai Police as an organization. Thanks for brave people like Tukaram Ombale Mumbai Police was able to grab one terrorist alive, but as an organization Mumbai Police was completely unprepared for the mumbai style attack. The police in India is undertrained, underpaid and under-armed. Any terrorist with a 9mm pistol can challenge a normal policeman in any Indian city. To add salt to the wound Indian Police is normally very corrupt. But we have seen individual bravery from some exemplary individuals. The Home Ministry should initiate a series of action to improve the effectiveness of police system in India. I believe we should do the following.

1. Increase the pay of normal policeman. The recent Pay Commission has not done justice to policemen

2. Set-up state of the art training facility in every major city in India and develop a Quick Reaction Team with MP-5 guns and light weight Bullet Proof Jackets to handle any situation. In today's violent India we anyways need a force that can take a situation under control immediately and cleanse a particular Area with miscreats. I think if we have a more disciplined QRT (Quick Reaction Team) then we can avoid several incidents such as riots also. A commando Force like a SWAT team should be set-up in every major city and such a force should take control of terrorist incidents, communal incidents or organized crime.

3. Every state has a Anti-terrorist Squad (ATS). I dont know what Mumbai ATS was doing when this attack was planned or what is their jurisdiction. Mumbai ATS was blown apart in this terror strike. According to me a local intelligence unit should be connected with RAW and IB and intelligence report should reach Local ATS offices and they should take swift and prompt action on intelligence reports. In terms of intelligence, India has a huge gaping hole in its portfolio. Either RAW and IB dont provide accurate intelligence for the Local ATS office to act on, or the local ATS office does not have the capability to create actionable intelligence from the information provided. I think NIA can be very useful in this area. NIA can be the nodal agency that can work on bridging the gap between IB, RAW and local ATS pandus.

4. Patrolling should increase in Indian cities with permanent bunker facilities for Mass Transit stations, big malls and exit strategy incase of a terror attack.

5. Immediate implementation of crisis management system. It is a shame the way India responds to a terror attack. No proper channeling of ambulances, no cordoning off of affected areas and no immediate response by hospital staff. The one good thing that we have learnt is about dissemination of information about the deceased and the injured. Otherwise everything about the response to a terror strike is very primitive.

The reason why I have written this detailed blog is to prepare a list of things that is needed to be done as a first step to immediately improve on interna security. Now the task is to see that whether the government is taking action and being serious about our security.

Abhishek