NCTC: Congress gives terror plan a quiet burial

With home minister Sushilkumar Shinde saying that the government will not bring a Bill on the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) in Parliament it is almost certain that it is curtains on P Chidambaram’s proposal for an integrated counter-terrorism centre. The main reason cited for not pursuing the NCTC idea is that there has been vehement opposition to the centre from various chief ministers. What seems to have turned the tide against the move was the opposition from Congress chief ministers. The June 5 chief minister’s meeting on internal security highlighted one crucial aspect that when it comes to matters regarding internal security there is no cohesion between the Centre and states. The Mumbai 26/11 attacks and the many other attacks that followed exposed, beyond doubt, the gaping holes in India’s security network. With the May 25 Maoist attack still fresh in the mind it was hoped that states, looking beyond federalist confines, would come together to address some of the pressing internal security problems India is facing today.
Law and order is a state subject and state governments fear that the proposed NCTC will compromise the existing structure and give the Centre superseding powers tampering the current autonomy they enjoy. The National Intelligence Grid (NatGRID), meant for gathering intelligence from various sources, was opposed for privacy violations and safety of information. Even the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), which was praised by Shinde at the June 5 meeting, hasn’t been fully operational. The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) is yet to take off. More than a dozen chief ministers expressed their reservations and even after the government proposed a watered-down NCTC, after agreeing to keep it out of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and curtailing its power to make arrests, there seems to be not many takers. These also included Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and recently elected Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah.
In the territorial wrangles between different states and the Centre, the point politicians miss is that the extremist forces, both within and outside the country, do not factor state boundaries —they use it to their advantage, and make the most of a dithering government. For any tangible progress to be made, a co-ordinated approach is required in which all states are equal stakeholders. The Centre and states should come together and form a comprehensive plan to tackle terror. The communion between agencies will have to be in tandem with more intelligence gathering at the ground level. Even for a proposal like the NCTC to make a difference, there is a need for getting more forces that can gather information at the ground level and hawk-eyed surveillance wherever possible. Unless such progress is made, for which greater political will is required from all parties, the government will still fail to protect its citizens.

Intelligence and a lack of it

What should have been a feather in the cap of the police force has now become a crown of thorns. On the face of it the Delhi police seemed to have nabbed a terrorist and with this averted a possible attack. But the jubilation of preventing a fidayeen attack on the Capital with the arrest of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Liaquat Shah alias Kaka Khan in Gorakhpur, near the India-Nepal border, by the Delhi police was short-lived when it was reported that the Jammu and Kashmir police were informed about Shah's arrival and were waiting for him. Shah, according to the J&K police, was on his way to surrender before the Kupwara district police under J&K's 2010 surrender-cum-rehabilitation policy. The policy is a major effort by the state to woo Kashmiris who crossed over to Pakistan but now want to return and lead a normal life.
While it is positive news that the Centre has, following a request from J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah to Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe the matter, the claims and counter-claims by the Delhi police and the J&K police raise a lot of questions, none of which reflect well on our 'preparedness' to counter a terrorist attack. The 26/11 attacks exposed the pitiable state of our intelligence-sharing mechanisms. Since then, a lot has been said about coordination and sharing of information among various intelligence and investigative agencies. The Shah arrest reveals that while the J&K police and the ministry of home affairs were informed about his return, and thus on the same page, the Delhi police, which was acting on information from its 'sources', was not in the loop. 'Let not the right hand know what the left is doing' is an ideal which may work in some fields but it is fatal as a dictum for intelligence and security agencies entrusted with the protection of the nation from threats, both from inside and out.
However, all is not lost. The Centre is considering reviewing its existing policy towards militants who surrender, to work on a 'larger policy framework' and to fill in the gaps. Shah's arrest and the publicity it has gathered are definitely not what scores of such militants, who return to Kashmir after abandoning their past ways, want. After being a militant for years the crossing-over is not easy: it's a daunting task to gain the confidence of the government. The greater threat comes from their earlier masters who generally do not take kindly to such changes of mind. Given that our government has a less than foolproof record of protecting ex-militants, the most prominent being the killing of Mohammad Yosuf, better known as Kuka Parrey, who was heading the counter-insurgency movement in Kashmir, it can hardly afford any more goof-ups like the one it seems to have made with Shah.
(This appeared as an edit in the Hindustan Times)