From sleeper cells, suicide bombers and cyber war to Left-wing extremism and communal violence, Director General (Law and Order) Ashok Kumar’s talk formed one of the most engaging sessions on the concluding day of the three-day 2019 Dehradun Literature Festival on the weekend.
With its theme being his book ‘Challenges to Internal Security of India’, the discussion drew a large audience that showed great interest and curiosity as people could be seen wanting to ask questions from the DG well past the session’s time.
Setting the tone by giving a historical perspective of the major security threats that India faced since 1947, the DG went on to dwell on current and emerging challenges.
“While Kashmir, North East terrorism and Naxalism are long-standing security challenges that our country is facing; communalism, online radicalisation and use of drones to perpetrate attacks are the new challenges that we need to mitigate. Also, what the 26/11 Mumbai attack showed us is our challenge of coastal security due to the sheer vastness of the area.
Additionally, after the problem in Punjab and Kashmir, we saw a spread of terrorism to the hinterland and as a part of this new strategy instead of being confined to two states, there were terrorist attacks in different parts of India. Since the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts to Pulwama, there have been almost 30 major attacks in India claiming more than 2000 lives so one challenge is what we can term as hinterland terrorism. The strategy of ISI has been to bleed India through 1,000 cuts.”
Talking of cyber terrorism, he observed, “ISIS became so strong that almost the entire world was terrified by it, and online radicalisation has been one of their most powerful tools in unleashing terror. Earlier in order to radicalise an individual, the person had to be recruited, made to cross the border, trained, and sent back in person however nowadays all these processes are being done online. But what we need to understand is that if criminals can take advantage of internet, so can the security forces to attack crime.”
Asked for his views on the Balakot strike, the senior police officer who has also authored four books, said, “The Balakot air strike is a major paradigm shift in India’s strategy against terrorism where we have sent a strong message to terrorists that India is not a soft target and if terrorists will come and attack us we shall not shy away from going right to their homes to destroy them. Not in all situations, but sometimes offence is the best defence.”
While advising the many students present in the audience to be extremely cautious about how they use smartphones and the internet, Kumar cited examples like the Snowden revelations, to stress that even if they have the strongest passwords, there is still a huge risk as all information is still stored in servers that can be accessed.
He also put a lot of stress on dissuading youngsters from taking drugs, also explaining how money from illegal drugs trade is one of the biggest sources of funding terrorism.
