26/11 - Aftermath

Internal-

The most important effect of 26/11 on Indian government is to awaken it to the threat's of terrorism in India. To understand how unconcerned Indian governments have been, we just need to look at a single statistic - after 2004, there have been more fatal causalities to terrorist acts in India than any other country in the world except Iraq. So, India is safer than war zone, great!!!

In its rush to respond to 26/11 (or is this a response to upcoming elections?), our government has outlined a grandiose plan, it plans to start a federal anti-terror agency; set up a 'command' for coastal security; get new and strong anti-terror laws, to open 20 new commando training centers all over India etc. We can do it, if we approach the task with single minded resolution. But I truly can't see much coming out of this. Compare this enthusiasm by our government to another fact - our PM has agreed to sanction two helicopters for NSG's sole use: wow what a great and 'timely' decision. Its shameful that in India we have to be satisfied with 'something is better than nothing' attitude. Providing (hey its still on paper) two helicopters for NSG's sole use is great, but just by itself its not that great. All major politician's have a copter for their sol'e use. It took us 23 years (NSG was formed in 1985) and many terror attacks and upcoming elections to provide NSG with their own helicopter's. We all remember Kandahar, hijack of IA flight 814. The flight was force landed in Amritsar for lack of fuel and it was the last chance Indian security had to storm the plane, if possible. NSG were put into action to do this, but (unfortunately or shamefully?) NSG got stuck in traffic near Amritsar and couldn't reach airport in time!!! The hijacked plane was flown to Kandahar via Dubai and Lahore and in Kandahar it was surrounded by heavily armed Taliban to prevent any action by Indian commandos. And this happened back in 1999. Now after almost 9 years (8 years 11 months) after the incident NSG had to again wait for Navy chopper's for their use. This is reality, this is how Indian government's have treated security issue. And this is not restricted to which party is in power as well. Back in 1999 BJP was at helm and now in 2008, its the Congress. No party has good, leave alone great record in India when it comes to internal security. And now this government is in a rush to implement various security measures and I sincerely hope it's giving a thought about sustaining these decisions with continued action. I read that IB, CBI, RAW are under staffed and we don't have sufficient number of instructors for training commando's - it will be wonderful if we can get the help of Israelites or US or UK in this regard. Hoping against hope, I want our government to take a professional, dedicated and uni-directional approach to enhancing internal security in India.

External-

Indian government's policy of putting pressure on the international community to force Pakistan to act against terrorist outfits in its territory seems to be working - at least on paper. UN banned the Jammat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of LeT and this has forced Pakistan to impose the ban. How far Pakistan's civilian government will be capable of implementing the ban is yet another question. Already Islamist political outfits have come out in protest against the ban. It is hard to see how Pakistan's government will be able to convince them and Pakistan's people that it acted due to UN's resolution and not under Indian pressure. The indications so far have shown that Zardari government is willing to curb terrorism originating from its soil. Whether this is a face lift or is truly a surgery, only time can tell. A true statement of Zardari's commitment and clout would have been evident if Pakistan were to hand over LeT chief, Dawood etc whom India wanted. But that is just a pipe dream. No civilian government in Pakistan has so far had such power and in recent years nor did any military regime. I genuinely feel that if we just demand for Dawood, we should be able to get him. I sometimes wonder is India politic wary that Dawood will bring out skeleton's from their closets once he's in the hands of Indian intelligence agencies?