This is the first of its kind attack in India. Strategic and defence experts in Pune say that this is the assymetrical war in the guise of terrorist attack. They also vouch that defence forces can not help each time and police force themselves have to brace themselves for fighting with these attacks.
Dr. Vijay Khare, reader in the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, University of Pune recently spent one month in Paris for his research work on ‘comparative study of Counter terrorism mechanism system of India and France.’ In his work Khare has visited to various universities and strategic think tanks. He said, “This is first direct asymmetric war on Indian Territory with external help and first time Indian Army, police force and paramilitary forces are working together. Terrorism issue is not between Hindu and Muslims, it is a asymmetric war against India. There is need to Unified single counter-terrorism mechanism for tackling this issue. There is also eed to understand psychology of minority community while conducting and operating counterterrorism operations.”
Us versus They
Khare also said that there is need to coordinatie various intelligence agency and paramilitary forces , police forces while conducting counterterrorism issue. If there was proper coordination among forces and anti terrorist squad then Hemant Karkare and other officers could have been saved. There is also need political consensus to tackling this terrorism issue. He said, “Unfortunately in India, common masses do not understand the roots of terrorism and it seems that there is conflict between majority vs minority. This real question among policy makers to how tacle terrorism issue.”
There is needed to get modern small arms in police forces and equipped
modern counterterrorism police force. Mumbai incidents are one tip of iceberg there is possibility of another attack on Indian Territory with weapons of mass destruction.
Series of Strikes
Vice Admiral (Retd.) Om Bansal replied in an emailed message, “Terror attacks such as the one in Mumbai now and even earlier, the train blasts and ones in Delhi, Ahmedabad etc. is declaration of war. Only it is an unconventional war, where the target is a peace loving civilians and the actors are non state. Here the enemy is a terrorist who does not belong to any state so whom do we fight with, negotiate for peace with, destroy? Just because all wings of armed forces are involved in the present case can not be the reason for calling it a war, its a war anyways. Did not the US declared that they were at war after 9/11? But you will now see, as does the US, that their response of attacking Iraq and even Afganistan is not the answer. I think the answer lies in resolving the underlying reason for terror, factors well known to every one.”
He says, “I do not really think it is a failure of any one a
gency and there are too many of them. So, its a systemic failure. it is impossible to search each and every boat at sea/ near coast. Above all suicide attacks are very difficult to eliminate, if attacker wants to die, how can one stop him. Any agency which coordinates intelligence inputs, analyse
s these to make it usable input and then take follow up action will surely help. For such an agency to work, it should have legal sanction from parliament to have total control, so guarding own turf and trying to gain brownie points by keeping information or their assets to themselves. We need to have a single point responsibilities, with total cooperation from all agencies.”
Col. Ajay Mudholkar said, "The action in Mumbai can at best be categorised into 'Low Intensity Conflict". It is definitely not a war since it is an action against a faceless group of people. It can involve all the three services wings depending on the nature of operation. There is definitely a need to improve our maritime reconnaisance efforts. With a very long sea-coast with not exactly friendly neighbour we need to intensify the patrolling along sea routes. This is also essential from our economic interests such as oil wells in this region. But with a lack of specific policy in this regard and the large mnumber of govt. agencies having a stake in the water it can not be termed as a failure but as as a lapse on part of concerned agency. The law-makers have to now wake to reality in this regard to formulate a formidable policy. All the sage politicians have been propagating these policies; but unfortunately, for the reasons unknown, no one has shown determination to bring these in existance. The necessity for the unified federal agency is a definite requirement of the day; especially in view of the technological advances which also give a diifferent advantage to the terrorist organizations also."
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a retird lieutenant general said, “These are the series of Fidayeen style terrorist strikes. A detailed analysis of the attack could be done only after knowing the motive of the attackers. Strenghthening of police forcem providing them the capacity of intelligence and capability to penetrate is necessary to prevent future incidents.”
(With Inputs from Nitin Brahme and Siddharth Gadkari)
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