A Suggested template for National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC)

A Suggested template for National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC)

(Published by Centre for Land Warfare Stidies)

V Mahalingam

(http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=master&task=1082&u_id=179)

The MHA Notification on NCTC is nowhere to be seen. It has however created a center state confrontation with political overtones to the determent of the country’s effort in fighting terrorism. Obviously, the states have not been consulted effectively so as to alley their apprehensions. Does anyone think that in a country like India, terrorism can be fought without the effective participation of the states? How have search, seizure, and arrest provisions opposed by the states in the case of operations against terrorists by the Army under the provisions of AFSPA, now found acceptance under NCTC?  Combating terrorism involves preventive, containment and investigation components besides a data bank in its organization. To that end the larger idea is good. Organizations will have to be evolved based on the role and not the other way around. Reasons for the National Security Guard (NSG) conceived as a counter – terrorism strike force ending up providing VIP security and the Multi Agency Center created after the Kargil War ending up as yet another branch of the IB are not very difficult to guess.  The efficacy of NIA established after 26/11 is yet to be validated. Intelligence The country needs an apex body with authority to collect, collate, evaluate and produce actionable information from all the resources in the country. Can the intelligence set up under the federal agency which is being thought about; have their men or electronic equipment disbursed all over the country to collect information? If not, how can a set of intelligence officers sitting in Delhi get any better intelligence than what is available today? Creating any number of additional intelligence agencies will therefore not improve the availability or the quality of actionable intelligence until and unless the number of available eyes and ears are increased and the resources available with various agencies in the country are put to optimum use. The solution lies in creating an efficient intelligence network down to the level of districts. A police constable is available right down to villages in some cases. He has the contacts and knows the geography better than anybody else. We need to put in place the right kind of a man, train him and place him on an information grid.  The efforts of all the intelligence agencies in the country will therefore have to be accessed, processed and duly corroborated. This doesn’t mean placing all intelligence agencies under a single apex body or placing them under the IB. IB’s tasks are multifarious and placing NCTC under its umbrella would be contradictory to their roles besides the suspicion that it would create in the minds of the people. Coordinating agencies need to be created at the State and at the ends of security agencies such as IB, RAW, Military Intelligence etc. Anything beyond intelligence integration would be impracticable for the intelligence component of the NCTC. How can all this be done without the active participation of the states? Operations The Security Agencies which are designed to carry out surgical strikes need to be placed under an umbrella organization with necessary authority to requisition, coordinate and deliver resources from various ministries, states and agencies within the country for better training, operational coordination and proper nourishing. Imagine an operational commander assigned a task to carry out a surgical strike trying to requisition a helicopter or requesting the stoppage of water flow in a canal within the country by a specific time. Will anyone listen to him? Does this effort not require the active participation of the State Government, other ministries and departments? At present NSG is under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). MHA tends to equate and treat NSG at par with Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). This does not go well with the idea of nurturing an elite force. Size of the Special Forces is seen as a means for empire building and the rank structure related to the size. How else can anyone justify the size of the NSG or clubbing Special Forces with VIP security when compared to the Special Forces in the rest of the world?  Provision of support and infrastructure needs of a force of this nature besides providing the force with the necessary authority would be better addressed and managed under the Cabinet Secretariat than the MHA or any component created within the MHA. Investigations NIA has already been created for this purpose. Its role and organization needs to be reviewed in the light of the experience gained so far. It is also for consideration if the investigators of the NIA would be able to carry out their task in a state without the assistance of the local police. Familiarity with the area, language, and other local information are factors which will weigh upon their efficiency.  Leadership The intelligence, operational and the investigative components of the NCTC need to be operationally independent under three heads. It is learnt that the whole of NCTC is likely to be headed by a Police Officer of the rank of Additional Secretary. While it would be logical to have a Police officer to head the intelligence and investigative components, Police officers may not fit the bill to head the operational component. Police Officers, however good they may be, lack the practical training, on ground operational experience which an Army Officer possesses. Every Army officer, especially of the fighting arms goes through training right from the level of section commanders to become senior unit and formation commanders. Special operations are all about conceiving an operational plan and effecting its execution. How can one expect a Police officer to meet these requirements purely on professional considerations? It is rumored that the Para Commandos of the Indian Army may also be placed under their call for operations. Do the Police officers know the role of these outfits, their capabilities and limitations? How can they be entrusted with the responsibility of employing them in an operation? We will again end up employing them the way we use the CAPF without any consideration for their role or capability.     Role of Local Police and Administration in a Terrorist Situation The role of local police and the administration in a terrorist situation are enormous and is a subject by itself. The need therefore is to carryout discussions with various State Administration and Police representatives and workout a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) including command, control and communication aspects. In case of a terrorist attack or a terrorist situation in a city anywhere in the country, it will invariably be the local police who would reach the location first. Once they are at the site of the terrorist attack, what are they expected to do in terms of containing the effect of the attack or collecting and protecting evidence and information or for that matter facilitating a surgical strike by a special force? . Do we not need the participation of the State Governments in such an endeavor? State Police Forces Prevention of crime and terrorist acts will have to be the prime responsibility of the State Police Forces as the federal agency will not have the wherewithal and the infrastructure of the required magnitude in a country of the size of India. It is essential each state has the required number of well trained and equipped Bomb Detection and Disposal units besides the ones with the federal agency. Once the surgical strike action has been completed by the Special Forces, it will invariably be the time for investigations and legal actions. Should the Special Forces be involved in the legal processes? A terrorist action having taken place within the jurisdiction of the State, would it not fall on the State Police to file an FIR, assist the NIA carryout investigations, produce witnesses and prosecute culprits? How can all this be accomplished without the active participation and cooperation of the State Governments?    Some of the Security agencies, not without reasons, do have a fear that information passed on to local police invariably get leaked resulting in the failure of operations besides jeopardy to lives of own troops. This aspect needs careful consideration and discussion with State Governments to evolve suitable Standard Operating Procedures. Lastly, the very outlook and attitude of the parenting bodies with regard to training needs of Police needs change. Posting to training establishments cannot be viewed as punishment postings and expect those on punishment to turnout professional cops. Also, viewing commando training as the solution for all police deficiencies or the view once a commando ever a commando needs change. A commando is good only as long as his skills are kept honed. Role of NCTC The role of the apex body NCTC should include coordination of counter terrorism strategy at the national level involving inter ministerial, interstate as well as inter agency participation. The diplomatic angle should not be lost sight of. While formulating the strategy, the fears and interests of the States need to be taken into account besides involving them as partners in the overall effort. This requires dialogue with the stake holders. NCTC should be the nodal agency to coordinate hostage negotiations besides giving the go ahead for the surgical strikes after obtaining government approval and coordinating with the state governments. It needs to spell out the terms of references as well as the terms of engagement. It will be responsible to provide all the necessary resources from states as well as various ministries and departments to enable the launching the operations. The responsibility to plan and launch the operation at a place and time of choosing should be left to the operational commander.      Some seem to opine that Special Forces should act within minutes of the incident. This is neither possible nor desirable. The Special Forces need time to carry out reconnaissance, and organize themselves this is especially so when the target location is sizeable and with several entrances and enclosed areas. Pressurizing the Forces to hasten up their action will only result in casualty to the innocent. The responsibility to provide this time, stage managing the media as well as keeping the State and the Central Governments informed besides coordinating with the Ministry of External Affairs will rest solely with the NCTC. Conclusion Ideally, NCTC as an apex body needs three separate independent components, one to receive, integrate and evaluate intelligence, the second, the Counter Terrorism Command to coordinate counter terrorist operations and the third the NIA. Clubbing any of these components or placing them operationally under the NCTC will make the organization unmanageable by a single head besides loss of focus. A national effort of this nature requires professionalism and not one-upmanship or turf wars. Brig V Mahalingam (Retd) is a Defence Analyst

The Aam Admi’s Indian Railway system in a mess

The Government run Indian Railways has managed to divide the Indian society into the high flying class consisting of the rich and the Government paid travelers of the Political and the bureaucratic variety and the “Aam Admi” who has no option but to travel in the risk ridden, ill maintained and poorly managed Indian rail network. How else can one explain the swanky well managed Indian airports providing services to a handful of highflyers and the dirty smelly and dilapidated railway stations and coaches providing “Cattle Class” services to the rest of the country?   No wonder the railway minister had this to say on the sidelines of a function at the Howrah Station. “I am certainly concerned about safety. And, we require huge money for safety. I think the Railways have outlived its utility as of now. We have to rebuild the entire railway system in the country almost all over again. And, I must tell you, fare hike is a very small portion of it," 

The Kakodkar Committee report on the Indian Railways has not come a day sooner and every citizen of the “Aam Admi variety is waiting to see if the Government will do anything before they become victims of a rail accident waiting to happen anytime. If the Government’s bailout package of Rs 19,000 crores to the Air India and Rs 20,000 crores to the mammoth Indian railways is anything to go by, the priorities of the Government are clear. One wonders what has happened to all the surplus funds which the earlier Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was boasting about. Did he fool the entire country and the B Schools of the world or has the subsequent Railway Ministers managed to squander the money? The Government owes an explanation to the country.

The power blinded Government and the powers who talk of Aam Admi need to know that the state of the Indian railways is something like this – As an example just go up to the Ring Road side entrance of the Hazarat Nizamuddin Railway Station. No one can enter the station without banging on some one. You cannot park a car nor can you carry your baggage without lifting it over your head. The walls protecting the railway station is the public urinal which everyone uses under public view. And if there is a rain or even a heavy drizzle, you have to roll up your trousers. The entrance to the station has just one X –ray machine to scan the entire lot of baggage carried by passengers. The crowd and the way the baggage are checked or unchecked provides confidence to none.  Walk into the platform and the strong stench welcomes you together with a filthy rail tracks and the over crowed dirty platforms. Hasn’t any one down the pecking order in the Government or the Indian Railways seen this?  If they have, what has been done about it? How can they, if all those in power happen to be air travelers? And how does it matter to them if the railways treat a “Aam Admi as a human beings or cattle? 

Get into a rail compartment – even an AC 2 Tier is dirty with mosquitoes and cockroaches moving about freely. Even at the starting station the latrines (Not wash rooms) are dirty to say the least. Does anyone inspect the coaches before it is placed on the platform? If not, why not? Is anyone accountable for ensuring cleanliness of the coach? Where are the hand wash solutions or the other material which the railways are expected to provide to a traveller? Has anyone checked as to what is the amount expended on these accounts and if the money has been washed down the drain or pocketed by someone? During Lalu’s time a band of cleaners used to come at selected stations to clean up the compartments. They seem to have vanished now. Where are they and who is getting paid for a job not done? If this is the state of the AC 2 Tier, you can well imagine the condition of the lower classes. No one seem to complain as the “Aam Admi has been conditioned into accepting such a state of affairs.    

As far as the catering services are concerned, the least said the better. 

The food supplied is insipid and its handling conducive to infections. In such a huge system, can’t a passenger have options on what he wants to eat or not? Should the menu be based purely on considerations of profit? Does anyone in the system check the quality and the state of hygiene of the food supplied? 

The British created this wonderful infrastructure for the country and we have successfully managed to make a mess of the entire system. Will someone at least now wake up and get thing going or will we find the various reports gathering dust in the Ministry of Railways? Will the railways continue to remain a utility which has outlived its utility? If we have yet another accident and lives are lost, the country will not forgive the Government.