Outdated gear, systems hamper India’s fight against terror: US
2 May 2009, 0128 hrs IST, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: India’s counter-terrorism efforts remained hampered by outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems, the annual report
on global terrorism by the US State Department, citing the Mumbai terror attacks, said.
The Mumbai attackers appeared to have been well-trained and took advantage of technology, such as Global Positioning System trackers. But “local and state police proved to be poorly-trained and equipped and lacked central control to coordinate an effective response,” said the report.
Ranking India among the world’s worst terrorism-afflicted countries in 2008, the report released on Thursday said that in spite of numerous terror attacks, none of the perpetrators of the attacks have been prosecuted.
But the assessment of the US terror report would not come as a surprise here. It took almost four and half years and several terror strikes for the Centre to reintroduce sterner laws. After the Mumbai terror attacks, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention Amendment) Bill was passed in Parliament in December last year to provide more teeth to investigators and prosecution to deal with terror.
But the law has attracted criticism from the main opposition BJP for absence of treating confessions of a terror accused as evidence. The US also takes note of the fact that the government was forced to take steps, including amending existing laws and setting up the National Investigation Agency, only after the Mumbai terror attacks.
The US state department report pointed out that the Mumbai terror attack was the ``most recent in a long list of lethal terrorist incidents this year” apart from the Jaipur serial bomb blasts, the Indian embassy in Kabul, serial bombs in Delhi and blasts in Assam. `` India ranked among the world’s most terrorism-afflicted countries.
It was the focus of numerous attacks from both externally-based terrorist organisations and internally-based separatist or terrorist entities,’’ the report said. It added that as per Indian assessment the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Bangladesh based Harakat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami as well as `indigenous groups’ were behind a number of these attacks.
The report also takes note of the Naxal threat in Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, and said that the failure in coordination between state and federal forces as another reason for failure in counter terrorism measure. ``...there is no clear unified command structure between state and federal forces in counterinsurgency efforts, which hampers their effectiveness,’’ the report said.
“The government of India believed these attacks were aimed at creating a break-down in India-Pakistan relations, fostering Hindu-Muslim violence within India, and harming India’s commercial centres to impede India’s economic resurgence,” the report said.
The report also dwells on Indo-Pak ties saying that attacks had set back improving ties between the two countries. “The composite dialogue between Pakistan and India was frozen by the Indian government in December, however, contributing to heightened tension between the two governments,’’ the report added.
NEW DELHI: India’s counter-terrorism efforts remained hampered by outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems, the annual report
on global terrorism by the US State Department, citing the Mumbai terror attacks, said.
The Mumbai attackers appeared to have been well-trained and took advantage of technology, such as Global Positioning System trackers. But “local and state police proved to be poorly-trained and equipped and lacked central control to coordinate an effective response,” said the report.
Ranking India among the world’s worst terrorism-afflicted countries in 2008, the report released on Thursday said that in spite of numerous terror attacks, none of the perpetrators of the attacks have been prosecuted.
But the assessment of the US terror report would not come as a surprise here. It took almost four and half years and several terror strikes for the Centre to reintroduce sterner laws. After the Mumbai terror attacks, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention Amendment) Bill was passed in Parliament in December last year to provide more teeth to investigators and prosecution to deal with terror.
But the law has attracted criticism from the main opposition BJP for absence of treating confessions of a terror accused as evidence. The US also takes note of the fact that the government was forced to take steps, including amending existing laws and setting up the National Investigation Agency, only after the Mumbai terror attacks.
The US state department report pointed out that the Mumbai terror attack was the ``most recent in a long list of lethal terrorist incidents this year” apart from the Jaipur serial bomb blasts, the Indian embassy in Kabul, serial bombs in Delhi and blasts in Assam. `` India ranked among the world’s most terrorism-afflicted countries.
It was the focus of numerous attacks from both externally-based terrorist organisations and internally-based separatist or terrorist entities,’’ the report said. It added that as per Indian assessment the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Bangladesh based Harakat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami as well as `indigenous groups’ were behind a number of these attacks.
The report also takes note of the Naxal threat in Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, and said that the failure in coordination between state and federal forces as another reason for failure in counter terrorism measure. ``...there is no clear unified command structure between state and federal forces in counterinsurgency efforts, which hampers their effectiveness,’’ the report said.
“The government of India believed these attacks were aimed at creating a break-down in India-Pakistan relations, fostering Hindu-Muslim violence within India, and harming India’s commercial centres to impede India’s economic resurgence,” the report said.
The report also dwells on Indo-Pak ties saying that attacks had set back improving ties between the two countries. “The composite dialogue between Pakistan and India was frozen by the Indian government in December, however, contributing to heightened tension between the two governments,’’ the report added.
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