Vigilance is price of safety

The fact remains that Pakistan-based militant groups, sponsored by their government, are able to strike at will. India is found only responding. Under Modi, the policy is one of bullet-for-bullet. The results are still at psychological level. The ground reality is adverse, and that shall remain so till the internal security dimensions are fully and constantly addressed. This is because we are found committing the same mistakes again and again. Catching Qasim Khan alias Mohammed Naved was a stroke of good luck

Come Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lal Qila address is bound to include threat to the nation’s security coming from across the Western border. It is an issue no Prime Minister in the past has been able to avoid. Bilateral ties have blown more hot than cold over sixty eight years.

The complexities are no longer confined to an India-Pakistan rivalry and to the borders. They have global dimensions. The threat is organised, heavily armed and motivated, requiring measured response. When noted columnist Swaminathan S Aiyar recently advocated that militants coming to cause mayhem from across the border be caught alive so that India can effectively counter them and tell the world its story with evidence, the readers’ response was one of scorn and ridicule.

It was dismissed as “an intellectual exercise” and unsolicited advice on security matters coming from an economist-journalist, teaching the police and the army how they should do their job. Few seemed to appreciate the nuances of the suggestions that are practical and doable, within the means of a police force. When it comes to Pakistan, we engage in jingoism.

If it is China, out of fear and if it is about Sino-Pak cooperation (read collusion), we react in plain anger. Without adopting Aiyar’s recommendations, however, the Jammu and Kashmir police caught alive Usman alias Qasim Khan alias Mohammed Naved, supposed to be from Faisalabad, come to “kill Hindus” and have ‘fun.’ Taking what has been told to the public at face value, undoubtedly, this was a stroke of good luck.

The catch has been hailed as “Ajmal Kasab II”, the first after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. It is the same face one sees, of a rugged youth in his late teens, probably poor, uneducated and unemployed, come to India on being brain-washed, trained and funded by Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), ready to embrace ‘martyrdom’ and go to heaven. His being caught alive was not on his or his mentors’ plans.

More ‘Kasabs” may or may not happen. The role of his two Indian hostages, Vikramjit and Rajesh Kumar, who captured Naved needs commending. Besides being lucky – Usman could have killed them – they also showed presence of mind and acted with courage. This indicates that formation of village defence committees and creating awareness among the people living along the border has worked. Why that was not done earlier is a question governments must answer.

After all, local villagers and cattle-herds had alerted the authorities when intrusion occurred that triggered a war, from 1947 to 1965 and then Kargil. Yet, it now turns out, Usman and his accomplices had been roaming in J&K for nearly two months receiving funds and shelter from the locals. What has worked in Punjab and Jammu has not worked in the Valley. The incident occurred nine days after the terror attack at Dinanagar in Punjab’s Gurdaspur.

There has been idle questioning why it took so many hours to get a couple of terrorists hauled up in the police station at Dinanagar. Actually, the police tried to wear down the attackers in a long 12-hour battle. In theory, the militants could have run out of ammunition or food, and surrendered. They fought to the death, as was only to be expected of highly motivated attackers by their mentors. The whole thing is flatly denied by Pakistan, anyway.

This, in itself makes the detention of “Kasab II” significant. Kasab provided a treasure trove of intelligence, squarely implicating the Pakistani authorities, while also indicating the local support. In numerous attacks that have occurred since 1947, catching “Kasab I” alive in Mumbai was a first. Trying him before courts, giving him all opportunities to defend himself before hanging him brought credibility to the Indian case against Pakistan.

This is evident from the writing of Tariq Khosa, the former Director General of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency. In his article in Dawn newspaper, he has emphatically gone public on what the world knows but Pakistan is foot-dragging about – that the attack on Mumbai was “conducted from Pakistani soil.” This and many other clear assertions of Khosa have nailed Pakistan’s lies and weakened its effort to somehow wriggle out of India’s insistence on discussing terrorism while seeking a dialogue that it insists should be comprehensive and not on a single-point agenda.

Khosa has been a respected officer and was part of Pakistan’s security establishment for long years. His writing it and a respected Karachi newspaper publishing it may also be a stroke of good luck for India. As for its timing and larger intent if any, we shall know only if and when more details come out. If not, Khosa may be in the dog house. He has been forced to retract. Without going overboard over Khosa and on Usman, the new catch, the governments at the Centre and in the States need to constantly review the security arrangements.

The appeal here is for ALL the states, and not just the ones on the border. No place is safe enough in the present times. The pragmatic course would be to put in place a solid border defence mechanism to prevent terrorist infiltration and keep piling pressure on Pakistan through bilateral and multilateral platforms to get it to dismantle the terror factories operating from its soil. The fact remains that Pakistan-based militant groups, sponsored by their government, are able to strike at will. India is found only responding.

Under Modi, the policy is one of bullet-for-bullet. The results are still at psychological level. The ground reality is adverse, and that shall remain so till the internal security dimensions are fully and constantly addressed. This is because we are found committing the same mistakes again and again. When Mumbai terror attacks occurred, arms, ammunition and explosives had landed by the sea and were safely stored.

Indian officials were bribed into allowing these landings and safe-keeping. Not much was heard about this thereafter, and no official is known to have been caught, tried, convicted and punished. But precisely the same thing had happened in 1993 as well, in the same Mumbai, when serial explosions killed 257 persons.

Save a Customs official, none was punished. Passing reference was made about the safe landing and safe-keeping of explosives during the recent hanging of Yaqub Memon and the debate it generated. But again, this is going to be forgotten till, God forbid, another attack takes place.