Nine years after 26/11 attack, India is safer today but still vulnerable

India has become inexplicably safer over the past years but her vulnerabilities have not diminished

 

Latest News : India has become inexplicably safer over the past years since the horrific 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks but her vulnerabilities have not diminished, argues Ajai Sahni. Crucially, India’s policing apparatus – the ‘first responders’ in case of terrorist attacks and the most productive sources of counter-terrorism intelligence – remains decrepit, ill-equipped, and substantially unprepared.

India’s internal security apparatus continues to move with characteristic and elephantine slowness nine years after the Mumbai 26/11 attacks, when the national leadership had promised it would take all possible measures to ensure that such incidents would never be repeated.

A constellation of factors – domestic, regional, and global – have nevertheless worked to ensure that there have been no repeats of the 26/11 attacks since, but vulnerabilities remain endemic. Indeed, speaking of the threat of Islamist terrorism, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh rightly observed, “There has been a decline in the incidents of extremism. The credit for this should go to the followers of Islam in India.”

Nevertheless, despite enveloping deficiencies and deficits, the intelligence and policing establishments have also responded with surprising alacrity and effectiveness. Specifically, with regard to the threat from the Islamic State (Daesh), at least 112 persons have been arrested, including at least 33 in 2017, and another 60 detained, for linkages with, plots connected to, or attempts to travel to join this global terrorist formation.

In over three years of strident Daesh and Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) incitement, one fairly incompetent plot has come to fruition in the form of a low-intensity explosion on the Bhopal-Ujjain Passenger Train on March 7, 2017, which left at least 10 passengers injured. Through 2017, there has been just one fatality relating to Islamist terrorism outside Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), the killing of the leader of the Bhopal-Ujjain train blast conspiracy, Saifullah, in Lucknow.

Click to Read → 9 Years of 26/11 attack

26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind’s nephew among 6 militants killed in Kashmir

Apart from Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi’s nephew, two Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders were also among the militants killed by the security forces

Six Pakistani militants of the LeT, including the nephew of Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, were gunned down in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district on Saturday in an encounter in which an IAF Garud commando was also killed, officials said.

Apart from Lakhvi’s nephew, two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commanders were also among the militants killed by the security forces, Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police (DGP), S P Vaid, said.

Security forces launched a search operation in Chandergeer village in Hajin area of the district after receiving specific intelligence input about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

The search operation resulted in an encounter when the militants hiding there fired on the search party of the security forces, who retaliated.

“Six LeT terrorists have been eliminated in Bandipora encounter,” Vaid said.

He said all the six militants killed in the encounter were Pakistanis.

One of the terrorists named Owaid is the son of Zakir Rehman Maki and the nephew of Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, he said on Twitter.

Two LeT commanders — Zargam and Mehmood — were also eliminated in the operation on Saturday, the DGP said, adding that the operation was a “success”. Six weapons were also recovered from the encounter site.

Srinagar-based Defence Spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia said an IAF Garud commando was also killed in the operation.

“An IAF Garud commando was killed, while an army soldier was injured,” he said.

The Garud Commando Force is the special forces unit of the IAF.

Click to Read → 26/11 Mumbai Attack