EDITS | Saturday, November 21, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Securing Delhi from terror
Hiranmay Karlekar
Roughly a month has passed since a number of stray dogs were poisoned to death at Nizamuddin East in New Delhi. The culprits have not been identified — to say nothing of being arrested — though Delhi Police has filed a first information report. And this despite the possibility of there having been a terrorist hand in the matter, as the barking of dogs often gives away the presence of approaching terrorists. Nor surprisingly, terrorists in Punjab and those crossing over the Line of Control from Pakistan into Jammu & Kashmir had asked villagers to kill all local dogs.
A possibility is not certainty. But Delhi has witnessed terror strikes since the 1980s, the most diabolical being the attack on Parliament House on December 13, 2001. It was foiled and all the five terrorists involved killed. Nine policemen and members of Parliament staff also lost their lives in the gunfight that took place. The last terrorist strike in the city occurred on September 13, 2008 when synchronised blasts in five different locations left at least 30 people dead and over 130 wounded.
Delhi continues to be a terrorist target. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s has charge-sheeted a Pakistani-born US national, David Coleman Headley, and a Canadian of Pakistani origin, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, for planning terror strikes in India and Denmark. According to the charge-sheet, filed in a Chicago court, National Defence College in Delhi was being considered as a target. In the background of the forays of the two accused in India, the Centre has warned five States — Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra — of the danger of terrorist attacks.
A major terrorist strike in Delhi just before the Commonwealth Games can touch off a panic, prompting some countries to opt out, besides causing a sharp drop in the expected arrival of foreigners to witness the event. This will lead to non-utilisation of a large part of the infrastructure being created to house them, the athletes and officials of the participating countries, and the loss of huge sums. And, of course, there will be a massive loss of face in the event of a major terror strike during the games.
Hence, Delhi Police must investigate everything that appears being aimed at facilitating terrorist strikes. In Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force — the NYPD, Christopher Dickey provides a riveting account of how, in the aftermath of 9/11, the New York Police Department built up an impressive counter-terrorism apparatus virtually from a scratch. He mentions the anthrax attacks that followed in the US shortly after 9/11 and ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid’s attempt to blow up an American Airlines’ flight in December 2001. Dickey writes, “In the immediate aftermath of these crimes, Ray Kelly’s (Raymond Kelly, New York’s Commissioner of Police) basic goal was to know everything about anything that could threaten New York City.” He italicised anything to add emphasis.
The lackadaisical manner in which the poisoning of stray dogs in Nizamuddin East is being investigated suggests the Delhi Police has a very different approach! A similar approach, and inadequate response to several warning signals, helped 26/11 to happen.
On September 24, 2008, the then Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, Mr Hassan Ghafoor, claimed that Mumbai Police had neutralised the ‘core group’ of the terrorist outfit, Indian Mujahideen. He then stated, ‘We have no doubt that Mumbai was their next target.” Given the history of terrorist strikes in the city, Mumbai Police should not have thought all was over and lapsed into complacence. On September 18, 2008, the Research & Analysis Wing picked up a satellite phone conversation in which a known LeT operative said that the target was a hotel near the Gateway of India. On September 24, the R&AW picked up another satellite phone conversation which mentioned four hotels — Taj, Marriott, Land’s End and Sea Rock — as targets and discussed the possibility of an attack on the Juhu airfield which is used by a flying club.
Fahim Ansari, an Indian national by birth, was arrested by Uttar Pradesh Police’s Special Task Force on February 10, 2008, in connection with an attack on a Central Reserve Police Force camp at Rampur in Uttar Pradesh on 31 December 2007. The police had seized from him five hand-drawn maps which he said he had prepared following the LeT’s instructions to identify targets for attacks. These indicated the route from Cuffe Parade and Backbay Reclamation in Mumbai to a number of places, including the Gateway of India, Lions Gate (leading to the naval dockyard), the State police headquarters, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mantralaya, Vidhan Bhavan, Churchgate station and the police commissioner’s office. Some of the maps even mentioned the time it would take to commute between two places.
Looking back, lack of coordination among Mumbai Police, the R&AW and the IB prevented action on the signals received closer to 26/11. The Navy and the Coast Guard failed to intercept the vessel carrying the terrorists despite being told about it when it was on the high seas.
Since terrorist strikes in India are launched from Pakistan, State police forces need to keep regularly in touch with the IB and R&AW. Commissioner Raymond Kelly oriented the NYPD’s Intelligence Division to cope with the global nature of the threat the Al Qaeda posed and brought as its head Mr David Cohen, who had been the CIA’s Deputy Director of Operations. He also set up a Counter-Terrorism Division which was first headed by Lt-Gen Frank Libutti, who had retired from the Marine Corps, and then Mr Michael Sheehan, formerly the State Department’s Ambassador at large for counter-terrorism. As Dickey points out, moves like this as well as the stationing of NYPD’s own agents abroad account for the absence of terrorist strikes in New York since 9/11.
Such lateral entries are not possible in India given the traditions and structure of policing led by the Indian Police Service cadre. But it will help to have liaison officers of Delhi Police permanently at the IB and R&AW. Also, all counter-terror activities should be put under a Special Commissioner. All leads, however insignificant they may appear, need to be followed up carefully.
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