India's war on terrorism lacks teeth and direction

By Manoj Joshi, Mail Today, 10/09/2011
India's war on terrorism lacks teeth and direction
In the ten years since Nine Eleven, the war against terrorism has changed the United States a great deal. In comparison, 26/11 has only had a superficial effect in India.

New Delhi: India has been unable to get its counter-terrorism strategy going from ground up. Terrorist incidents take place often, because the local police simply lacks any concept of modern policing. This is evident in Delhi every time there is a security alert.

To show the people that they are doing something, the police put half-barriers across the road to slow the traffic. It is a moot point as to whether they have ever detected a suspect person or vehicle this way.

All it does is to slow the traffic and provide an illusion for policing. What the police ought to be doing active patrolling and effectively meshing their intelligence networks to their daily operations.

The next link in the chain the shoddy manner in which the investigations are usually carried out. The handling the 2002-2006 bomb blast cases by the Mumbai police a story of botched investigations, custodial killings and frame-ups. Many of those arrested withdrew their confessional statements at trial stage and some of cases collapsed because their own weight of police manufactured falsehood. The story is no different elsewhere.

The next level of the problem relates to the slow movement the criminal justice system that often keeps people incarcerated for years on end and then releases them for the want evidence. There are other cases in which people have spent more time in jail than they would have if they had been convicted, their trials have not even begun.

In the ten years since Nine Eleven, the war against terrorism has changed the United States a great deal. In comparison, 26/11 has only had a superficial effect in India. The most obvious one to the citizens the intense screening of air passengers where the US invested some $ 50 billion equipment and training of personnel.
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