Work in unison on security

By Radhavinod Raju

The last time India faced external aggression was in Kargil in 1999. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had been defeated on the floor of Parliament weeks before the limited war broke out. Yet, the country rose as one to face the external challenge and fully backed the armed forces. The combination of the Indian armed forces and Indian diplomacy proved too strong for the desperate Pakistani generals, who were compelled to withdraw from the Indian side of the Kargil heights that they had surreptitiously occupied. The Indian polity was fractured then, as now. No doubt the NDA returned to power in the elections to Parliament that followed, but one party rule at the Centre had been virtually ruled out repeatedly by the electorate, since the 1989 Parliament elections.

The latest election results would clearly show that regional forces would continue to exert pressure on the Centre that sometimes goes beyond their respective strengths. An example is Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s stand that prevented Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from concluding an important river water sharing agreement with Bangladesh. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress with 19 Members of Parliament is an important member of the ruling UPA. Similar opposition was there in the case with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s decision on foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, kept on hold pending consensus on the issue. On the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Mamata Banerjee has joined forces with several other opposition chief ministers, and regional political leaders in opposing the Centre’s move. What are the implications of the latest election results for national security?

It is clear that in case of external aggression against the country, all political formations and combinations forget their differences and fight the aggressor. These differences come out as soon as the aggression comes to an end, as seen with allegations of coffin-gate after the Kargil war. In the case of internal security threats, like in handling Maoists, or even proxies like the Indian Mujahideen of Pakistani groups like the LeT, differences between political parties are many. Despite the growth of the CPI (Maoists), which was formed in September, 2004 after the Peoples’ War Group, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Maoist Communist Centre merged, the Centre and affected States have not succeeded in working out a cohesive counter-terror policy. Sometimes leaders of the same party have different views, which confuse the counter-terrorism mechanism and weakens its response. A case in point is the Batla House encounter against the Indian Mujahideen, where the Union home minister has certified that the operation was genuine, but was questioned by a prominent general secretary of his own party. Obviously the general secretary was eyeing the Muslim votes in the battle for Uttar Pradesh, though the party was rebuffed by the community with disdain. Such gimmicks do not impress anyone, anymore.

This does not mean that there is no threat to the country’s integrity from the jihadi and Maoist groups, or the Northeast insurgencies. There are hostile powers that would continue their efforts to destabilise India. Our leaders, at the Centre and States, will have to work out strategies that can successfully counter the machinations of these hostile powers while retaining a strong federal set- up as envisaged in the Constitution. They have to learn to work together on issues of national security. For this to happen, it is essential to bring about certain basic changes in the functioning of agencies like the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). There is public perception that these organisations are used to enhance the ruling party’s political fortunes at the Centre and in the States. This is doing great injustice to the hundreds of officers and men working tirelessly in these organisations to protect India or to fight corruption at high places. But the perception has lingered, and is behind the current opposition to the order issued by the central government creating the NCTC within the IB. The parties, other than the Congress, which are ruling States, believe that the powers of arrest, search and seizure given to the NCTC will be misused against them. How does one change this perception?

Perhaps a forum consisting of the prime minister, the Union home minister, the Union finance minister, the defence minister, the external affairs minister, the law minister and all chief ministers, senior bureaucrats like the cabinet secretary, the home, defence, finance, law and foreign secretary, director IB, and secretary R&AW, and all chief secretaries and DGs can meet whenever there is need to consider options like creation of NCTC or setting up of a National Investigation Agency. Once the DIB or the secretary R&AW explains the nature of the threat faced by the nation, this forum should consider various options to counter such threats effectively. Once a consensus is reached by this forum, then if necessary it would be possible to even amend the Constitution to incorporate the new set-up. Such a system will remove all misgivings, and state governments will not have any objections. What happens today appears to be more like a central ‘fatwa’ to the States to fall in line, which is seriously resented by them.

The time has come to have a parliamentary oversight body to look at the functioning of intelligence agencies and the CBI. Vice President Hamid Ansari had first raised the issue of parliamentary oversight in the case of intelligence agencies during the R N Kao Memorial Lecture in January, 2010. Such oversight will bring in accountability in the functioning of these agencies, and make them more credible than they are today. Our growing economic strength, together with our demographic and other natural advantages has raised our profile, and India is expected to play a more proactive role for its own and the region’s security. We need a NCTC, we need a National Investigation Agency, and we need counter-terror mechanism in the States, all poised to work together in harmony. We need to evolve into a mature nation, where all political parties and the bureaucracy work in unison on national security issues. That appears to be the only way.

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own) 

Radhavinod Raju 

is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail: radhavinodraju@gmail.com 

New Indian Express  12th March 2012                                                                                                

Disputes in fighting terror

By Radhavinod Raju

The central government’s order on the constitution of the NCTC has run into rough weather, with not only opposition-run state governments, but even governments run by its own ally openly criticising the order for allegedly violating the seventh schedule of the Constitution — infringing on the states’ area of responsibility, and calling for its review and eventual withdrawal. Terrorists today draw plans to attack India choosing targets at different centres, with Mumbai and Delhi figuring prominently on the radar, but also encompassing iconic targets like the Indian Institute of Science. Apart from Delhi and Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Chennai have all been attacked by jihadi groups at different times. The Lashkar-e-Toiba’s multiple Mumbai attacks on 26/11 are considered the most devastating after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, the murdered Pakistani journalist known for his deep contacts with the jihadists has said in his book Inside Al Qaeda And The Taliban that 26/11 was executed by al-Qaeda. The recent attack on an Israeli diplomat has allegedly brought the Iran-Israeli cold war to our capital. This case is yet to be worked out, and international agencies will be keenly watching out findings in the case. Can the states by themselves handle jihadi terror? What happens when terrorists plan an attack sitting in a foreign country, and lodge simultaneous attacks across several cities in India? What is the Centre’s role in tackling terrorists who have made India their target?

The type of asymmetric war that was unleashed against India by a hostile neighbour, with terror as an instrument of state policy, would never have figured in the reckoning of our leaders while the Constitution was being drafted. Had this figured then, police would have most certainly gone into the concurrent list, instead of the states’ list of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. While the Constitution has provided for the Centre protecting states from external aggression and internal disturbance, what happens when the country which has covertly encouraged jihad against India, overtly professes friendship? How does the Centre discharge its responsibility of protecting the states against the jihadists, short of going to war?

It is obvious therefore that the central and state governments have to work in close coordination to thwart terrorist attacks against India. There has to be an agency in India which has an all India picture of the threats to this country, and this agency has to work closely with the state police forces, both the intelligence agencies and the operational units, in order to neutralise the threats, and to take action, if and when the threat is converted into an attack on the ground. The Union home minister’s plan, that was unveiled during the IB Centennial Endowment lecture in December 2009, had provided for such ingredients consisting of preventive, detective and operational units. P Chidambaram, however, had foreseen turf wars between different agencies and had pleaded that such turf wars should be avoided. However, the final shape of the order creating the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) has belied such hopes.

The minister had said that the IB’s Multi Agency Centre (MAC) would be subsumed into the NCTC, along with several other agencies like the National Investigation Agency (NIA). It appears to have been already forgotten that the NIA was created in the backdrop of the 26/11 attacks to fight terror, and it had not only detective, but also preventive mandates in regard to terrorist attacks. The NIA has taken up only one case of a major terrorist attack after its formation — there appears to be reluctance in the Ministry of Home Affairs to direct the NIA to take up all major terrorist cases that have taken place after 26/11. On the other hand, it has been burdened with old cases, both of the jihadi variety and right-wing terror that had taken place much before its creation. In this set-up, how does one expect a new agency to concentrate all its energies in fighting jihadi terror for which it was apparently created in the first place?

But the most important question is why Section 43 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) has been used to give powers of arrest, searches and seizure to the Intelligence Bureau, something which is totally unprecedented? Was this necessary? The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has police powers of arrest, search and seizure, but it can function in the states only with the consent of the state governments. There is unfortunately, a public perception, perhaps well-founded, that the CBI is the handmaiden of the ruling party at the Centre, and can be misused. That is why no state would have accepted the CBI being given powers to take up terrorist cases, like the NIA, without the states’ consent. The states’ consent is in-built in the structure of the Delhi Police Establishment Act, the Act from which the CBI draws its powers. Similarly, there is a strong perception that the IB works to promote the political interests of the ruling party at the Centre. As long as this perception persists in the states, they will not accept extension of police powers to the IB.

But once again, was it necessary to give the IB these powers? The NIA already has these powers of arrest, searches and seizures, and an inspector general in the NIA has already been declared as the designated authority under the UAPA. No state government has objected to this. Why can’t the IB and the NIA work closely, in close coordination with the states, and fight terror? So, if, as the Union home minister had originally envisaged, the NIA had also been brought in the overall scheme, there was no need for this order, and this needless controversy could have been avoided. Is the NIA only an investigation agency? And if the latest terrorist cases will not be given to it, is its role only to investigate dead cases? Where does it stand in the latest scheme of the government?

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own) 

Radhavinod Raju is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail: radhavinodraju@gmail.com 

New Indian Express

Watch over Pakistan proxies

By Radhavinod Raju

Several Pakistani strategists believed that they were holding all the cards in the closing stages of the Afghan end game. With Mullah Omar and his Shura safely ensconced in Quetta, the Haqqanis ready to do any bidding to strike at NATO and Afghan security forces, and the NATO dependent on Pakistan for refurbishing essential supplies for the Afghan operations, Pakistan expected to gain a place on the high table to discuss Afghanistan’s future as NATO and US forces wound down their operations. Pakistan’s obsession with having strategic depth in Afghanistan, and its opposition to growing Indian influence in that country have guided the Pakistan Army’s strategic thinkers in making their policy on Afghanistan.

The May 2 Abbottabad operation, when US Navy SEALs swooped down on Osama bin Laden’s hideout at a short distance from the Pakistan Army’s prestigious Academy in Kakul, changed all that. It left the army, the self-proclaimed defender of Pakistan’s sovereignty and integrity, red-faced. President Obama’s announcement to the world about the end of Osama, and that the United States had gone it alone gave indication that the Americans did not trust their ‘strategic ally’ in the war on terror on this sensitive operation. His announcement a few days later in London, that the US would not hesitate to repeat the operation were they to get information about a high value target, only rubbed salt into the Pakistani wounds.

Officials in Pentagon were clear that Pakistan cannot be trusted with sensitive operational information. They cited earlier instances when they shared operational information with Pakistani authorities, closely followed by the ISI passing on such sensitive information to militants allowing them to escape before commencement of operations. The Americans had access to technology and other sources to verify such actions of the ISI. They even believed that the ISI was orchestrating public and media opinion in the country to attack Americans, though US aid and assistance were always welcomed. The Qaeda attack on the Mehran Naval Base in Karachi around this time gave clear indications that Qaeda elements had infiltrated some elements of Pakistan’s armed forces. Salim Shahzad, the Pakistani journalist who had reported on such nexus, was abducted and his decapitated body was discovered a few days later, allegedly by the ISI. All US attempts to make Pakistan agree to dismantling the Haqqani network in North Waziristan failed.

It was in the midst of such deteriorating atmospherics between the United States and Pakistan that the November NATO airborne attack on two Pakistani Army posts took place in Salala, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. According to the Pakistan Army this was an unprovoked attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty. There was furore all over the country, with the government demanding an apology from the Americans. They refused to participate in a joint enquiry by NATO. Immediate action taken by the Pakistanis included closure of the NATO supply line through Karachi to the Afghan border, the cheapest and shortest route that the supplies could take, and closure of the Shamsi airbase from where some of the drone attacks used to be mounted by the CIA to target militants in Pakistani bad-lands in North Waziristan. There was competition between the army and the civilian government to show who took the tougher stand vis-à-vis the Americans, forgetting for a moment the dependence of both on US aid and assistance. Pakistani attempts to replace America with China as their principal benefactor only produced lukewarm response from the all-weather friend. Instead of looking for opportunities to reduce the diplomatic temperature between the two countries, Pakistan decided to boycott the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December 2011, closing the gate for a possible reconciliation between the estranged allies.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani referred the whole issue for a parliamentary review, and got clearance to open the NATO supply lines, stoppage of drone attacks and re-negotiation of transit fee for NATO’s supplies. Pakistan did not get an invite for the NATO’s conference in Chicago that was to discuss Afghanistan. Karzai was, on the other hand, an important guest. Though the Pakistani Army kept aloof, Zardari wangled an invite at the last moment, hoping to make up with the Americans. The supply route did not open as Pakistanis demanded a hike in the transit fees. President Obama refused to meet Zardari and he finally returned empty handed from Chicago, with foreign minister Rabbani Khar harping on a US apology that had no chance of coming forth. The recent punishment meted out to Shakil Afridi by a tribal court, sentencing him to 33 years imprisonment for helping the CIA to locate the world’s most wanted terrorist has further exacerbated US-Pakistan relations. For the US, Afridi is a hero, while Pakistan calls him a traitor. While the US would be happy if Pakistan gave wholehearted cooperation to their winding down operations and future Afghan strategy, they have taken other measures to shift their forces and supplies through the central Asian regions. Pakistan now finds itself in a corner vis-à-vis Afghanistan.

The US would like India to play a more active role in Afghanistan. India has entered into a strategic partnership with that country and has already invested billions in Afghanistan’s development. Indian public and private sector companies have won rights to develop iron ore mines in Haji Gak, and they are in the process of investing billions more to develop railways and power plants in the area. India has deep cultural and other roots in Afghanistan, and except for a brief period of Taliban rule, has always had excellent relations with that country. Afghanistan is India’s gateway to Central Asian gas and oil. India’s partnership with Afghanistan provides for training of its armed forces and police.

Pakistan is not happy with these developments, notwithstanding several rounds of bilateral discussions between India and Pakistan. The only way the Pakistan Army and the ISI know of forcing their way in Afghanistan is by causing death and destruction through terror attacks. To keep India away from Afghanistan, the ISI would look at creating more trouble in India. Tourism is booming once again in Kashmir and we need to keep a close watch over militant and separatist activities. Our forces should be on the alert for sudden provocations from across the border. The NIA, the Intelligence Bureau and the state anti-terrorist units need to keep a sharp look-out over Pakistan’s proxies here, the Indian Mujahideen for sudden strikes in sensitive centres.

Radhavinod Raju  is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency.

New Indian Express

16th June 2012 

Live threats from Pakistan

By Radhavinod Raju

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s gesture of allowing the Indian Army’s helicopter with the two pilots to return to India hours after it strayed into Pakistan due to a technical snag in the Ladakh sector in October last was highly appreciated in India. It is believed that without the Pakistan Army’s clearance, the progress made in giving a positive push to commercial activities between the two countries would not have taken place. It was obvious that with a plummeting economy, and the United States placing severe restrictions on funds flow into Pakistan, the establishment, including the Pakistan Army bosses, would have realised the benefits of doing business with India. During a visit to the avalanche-hit Gyari on Pakistan’s side of the Siachen Glacier, just below it, which took 140 Pakistani lives including 129 soldiers of the Northern Light Infantry last month, General Kayani called for peaceful resolution of the Siachen Glacier dispute, and proposed that Pakistan spend less on defence and more on the development for the people. He is further reported to have said, “Peaceful coexistence between the two neighbours is very important so that everybody can concentrate on the well-being of the people.”

General Kayani’s change of heart vis-a-vis India has set many heads thinking — is this a tactic to help Pakistan get over its current problems, both internal with respect to the Pakistan Taliban’s attacks on the state, and the external problems with their chief patron, the US? Peaceniks on both sides of the border are happy with the latest developments, some of them calling for removing the trust deficit between the two countries.

When President Asif Ali Zardari, soon after taking over in September 2008, said that the issue of Kashmir should be left to later generations for sorting out, and called for closer economic ties between the two countries, there was severe criticism, which forced him to go into a shell. General Kayani is on record that his Army was India-centric. The suicide attack on the Indian embassy in July 2008, was a warning to India not to get too involved in Afghanistan — an operation credited to the ISI’s proxies, the Haqqani group of the Afghan Taliban. This was soon followed by Mumbai 26/11, when 10 heavily-armed terrorists held Mumbai to ransom for nearly 60 hours, killing 166 innocent persons. Zardari had offered to send the ISI chief, General Shuja Pasha to India, but was overruled by Kayani. Much later, disclosures of David Coleman Headley, an American of Pakistani origin, to the FBI while in their custody, and later to India’s investigators had revealed the roles of two serving ISI majors in the Mumbai attacks, though as usual Pakistan has denied this. Indian investigators possess enough evidence that would show the two majors, Iqbal and Sameer, were also involved in normal Army intelligence operations, clearly establishing them as serving Army officers. With such evidence it is clear that the Pakistan Army’s attitude towards India continues to be hostile.

The reluctance of the Pakistan government to bring the top planners of the 26/11 attacks, including Hafiz Saeed, to stand trial, and that even the trial against the second rung leaders of the LeT has hardly seen any movement, only compounds this complicated relationship. It is very well known that the LeT, and its patron, Hafiz Saeed, have close relations with the Army bosses in Rawalpindi, and have refrained from attacking the Pakistan Army, unlike the Pakistan Taliban. So while there are intellectuals and peaceniks on both sides of the border, now joined by the business communities calling for easier visa regimes and removing the trust deficit, Indian security agencies would continue to remain highly sceptical about these calls.

For the strategic community in India, the terrorist infrastructure created by the Pakistani Army to engage India in an unconventional, asymmetric war, and to take control of Afghanistan through the Afghan Taliban including the Haqqani group, after the withdrawal of US forces in 2014, continues to be a live threat. India has invested heavily in Afghanistan’s development, and has entered into a strategic partnership with the Afghan government, all of which would come under threat from the Afghan Taliban backed by Pakistan. Pakistan has consistently withstood international pressure for disbanding this infrastructure, giving different excuses — like no evidence against Hafiz Saeed for his involvement in 26/11, and that its forces are overstretched and cannot take on the Haqqani group in Pakistan’s bad-lands in Waziristan. The Americans have finally realised that while taking billions of dollars in aid from the US, Pakistan has continued to encourage the Haqqani group to target American soldiers and other interests in Afghanistan. While militant infiltration from across the border into Jammu & Kashmir has come down considerably, there are reliable reports of hundreds of trained militants waiting to cross over into India. As recently as a week back, the Indian Army thwarted attempts by militants to cross into India by eliminating six of them on the border in the Uri sector.

Thus there are important considerations of security that constrain India’s security managers from supporting moves to allow Pakistanis unbridled access to Indian businesses and investments in India’s economy, and to soften the visa regime. That cannot happen without Pakistan dismantling the terrorist infrastructure that has inflicted considerable damage on this country, and controlling terrorists like Hafiz Saeed from going around freely, pouring vitriolic against India. The question is whether General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, with his new found realisation of having good neighbourly relations with India, will allow this to happen? That indeed is the acid test. Or will that have to wait for the civilian government in Pakistan, which is keen to forge better ties with India, from gaining total control over Pakistan’s armed forces. Is this possible in Pakistan, which has been controlled by its Army for over half of its existence since Independence? Only the future can tell.

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own) 

Radhavinod Raju is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. 

E-mail: radhavinodraju@gmail.com 

New Indian Express

16th May 2012 

Lessons from hostage crises

By Radhavinod Raju

The Pakistan-backed insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir has been going on since late 1989. December of that year marks a watershed in the evolution of the insurgency when, following the appointment of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as Union home minster, his daughter Rubaiya Sayeed was abducted by militants of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a militant organisation that was spearheading the insurgency. They received a tremendous boost when five top JKLF militants, earlier arrested by the J&K police, were released in exchange for Rubaiya. The morale of the police, which was fighting the insurgency without proper training or equipment, nose-dived. It took over three years for the J&K police to recover from this blow, and join the mainstream in fighting the insurgency. This proved to be a game changer, and that is how we were able to control this foreign-backed assault on our sovereignty.

There have been other cases of abduction in Jammu & Kashmir, of soft targets who did not have security, or in the earlier days of insurgency, due to mistakes made by the abducted persons due to lack of experience. The cases of H L Khera, general manager of HMT and Mushirul-Haq, vice chancellor of Kashmir University were simply cases of abduction and subsequently torturing them to death. In the case of the abduction of K Doraiswamy, executive director, Indian Oil Corporation, he was released in exchange for nine terrorists. Most of such abductions took place between 1989 and 1991. After that the state settled down to a long drawn engagement with terrorists, a large percentage of which was from Pakistan and the rest from countries that had contributed to the Afghan jihad.

One of the important tasks of the police was to draw a list of local political leaders, perceived to be pro-India, who faced genuine threats to their life. Quite a number of them, especially from the National Conference, had been eliminated, and there was a political vacuum in the Valley during 1990-1993. They were categorised according to threat perceptions, and placed in appropriate categories of security. According to the gradation, the lowest category would fetch the protected person a Personal Security Officer, or PSO. For the next higher category person, there were two PSOs and a guard at home. For the next higher category, an escort was also provided along with the PSOs and a guard at home. Similarly, lists of vulnerable installations, areas and points were also drawn for special attention. These included houses of important leaders, bridges, buildings, airports, dams, etc. Some political leaders who had to move around in the Valley were provided with bullet-proof vehicles. While there have been allegations of misuse of men and material in the name of security, no risk could be taken in withdrawing security without proper assessment of security needs. There was a system in place, consisting of the district special branch, the state CID special branch and the Intelligence Bureau, whose officers met regularly to review security of political leaders, officers working in the field and other categories like Amarnath Yatra, etc.

While there have been attacks on officers and political leaders on the move, in their office or even at their homes, including on the police headquarters, the security has always responded, and made it costly for the terrorists to indulge in such attacks. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were used to assassinate minister of state for home Mushtaq Lone. The DIG of Anantnag was attacked in another IED assault just outside his office, and seriously injured. However, the fight went on, with security forces gaining the upper hand and learning from mistakes, but moving ahead with determination.

One serious setback happened when an Indian Airlines aircraft with over a hundred passengers was hijacked by Pakistani terrorists in December, 1999. The terrorists wanted several of their colleagues in Indian prisons to be released in exchange for the aircraft and passengers. Topping the list was Azhar Masood, who had been arrested by the security forces in 1994, and was in prison in Jammu & Kashmir. His release caused us the maximum harm, in that he returned to Pakistan and formed the Jaish-e-Mohammad, which was responsible for the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001 December, on the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly in October, 2001, and many attacks in Jammu & Kashmir and other parts of India since then.

The Pakistanis had earlier, in 1994, abducted six foreigners, including two Americans and Britons each, one Norwegian and a German to get the release of Azhar Masood. One of the abducted persons escaped from their custody, one was beheaded, while the remaining four were reported to have been also killed by the terrorists, once it became clear that the Indians would not oblige them by releasing Azhar Masood. On both occasions, when five JKLF terrorists were released in exchange for Rubaiya Sayeed and when Azhar Masood and two other terrorists were released in exchange for the hijacked Indian Airlines aircraft with the passengers, the state government was against release of the terrorists — it was the central government that caved in and brought pressure on the state government to release the terrorists. There was no instance of any officer being abducted and demands being made for release of arrested terrorists.

It is not clear whether the abducted district collector of Sukna, in Chhattisgarh, Alex Paul Menon, was entitled for only two PSOs when he went into the Naxal infested area, or that he did not take his full detail of security in order to ensure that people were not scared to openly come and meet him. In either case, it is a serious security lapse, which would be forgotten as soon as Menon is released and there is all-round euphoria to celebrate the event. The sacrifice of the security forces in nabbing wanted terrorists would soon be forgotten. Nobody would appear to be concerned about the state of their morale. And then it is business as usual.

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own) Radhavinod Raju is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail: radhavinodraju@gmail.com 

New Indian Express

30th April 2012 

No talks with Maoists

By Radhavinod Raju

Naxal literature that is available gives some idea about their ideology, and their future plans. Analysis of various tactics and strategies employed by them in fighting the security forces, mistakes made and corrective actions taken, all are discussed threadbare. A thorough study of all their literature, and lessons drawn by our own forces during various clashes with the Naxals in rural and forest settings, the various types of weapons employed by them, including sophisticated firearms and improvised explosive devices etc, should help in drawing appropriate strategies to neutralise them. Their current area of operation includes far flung tribal settlements and forests in remote areas in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Twelve Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans were killed and 28 injured when suspected Maoists triggered a landmine blast at Pushtola in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, late last month. Some companies of CRPF were to be posted at Pomke Gatta. The CRPF unit was reported to be on its way from Karvafa to Gatta for road opening and area domination. When they approached Pushtola between 11.30 am and noon, the Naxalites blasted the landmine. The jawans were travelling in a bus. Obviously the Naxals in the area had received intelligence about the CRPF movement, resulting in the planning and execution of the ambush. The abduction of Italian tourists in Odisha, one of whom was released subsequently, and the abduction of a BJD MLA about whose fate there is no information, shows the Naxals active in different theatres, and that they may have recovered from the loss of their leader Kishenji late last year.

As soon as he took over, the Union home minister P Chidambaram had ambitious plans of bringing in all the Naxal-affected states together in one platform and of working out a common strategy to go after the Naxals. In between, Chidambaram also called upon the Naxals to shun violence and join the government for talks. It soon became clear that all the states were not on board and some still wanted to bring them round by talks. While there were a few operational successes for the security forces, there were serious setbacks too, as when the Naxals massacred 76 CRPF jawans in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh in April 2010. It would be interesting to compare the tactics and strategies of the Naxals and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Prabhakaran’s remarkable outfit which appeared to be unbeatable till the Sri Lankan Army launched an all-out war against the outfit.

In the late Eighties, it was suspected that the Naxals had linked up with the LTTE, and that the latter had provided them sophisticated arms like AK47s, and training in the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), in which the LTTE were masters. The maximum number of casualties that the LTTE inflicted on the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the Mullaitivu jungles were through IEDs. That in 1989, for the first time the security forces were attacked by the Naxals with sophisticated arms and the extensive use of IEDs was a pointer to the Naxal-LTTE link. As long as the LTTE indulged in a guerilla war with the Sri Lankan security forces, they continued to hold fort. If they were defeated in one sector, they inflicted defeats on the Sri Lankans in another sector. When we look at the movement of the Naxals, we find them attacking in one sector, and as the security forces get in, they move into another area.

A recent report said that the Maoists have mastered the skill of making weapons, and that the weapons recently seized in Guntur consisted of grenades, rifles, rocket launchers and booby traps. Even the LTTE had developed skills to manufacture weapons and grenades. In 1989, a factory in Coimbatore was located by the local police as an LTTE foundry, manufacturing grenade shells. They shifted location of the factory and continued to manufacture shells from there and no stringent action was taken. It was only after the Rajiv Gandhi assassination that the LTTE’s units in Tamil Nadu were shut for good.

Each time he entered into talks with Colombo. Prabhakaran used the time to recoup his losses, go for fresh recruitment and training, and procure arms. His objective, however, always remained Tamil Eelam. Had he been let off the hook in May 2009 by the Sri Lankans, there is no doubt that he would have regrouped his forces, and attacked the Lankans. Several state governments in India have tried to talk with the Naxals, but not once did the talks move forward beyond initial statements. From a rag-tag force of a few dozens in the Eighties, the Naxals have grown into a formidable guerilla force, and their objective, as in the case of the LTTE, has remained unchanged — forcibly overthrow the democratically elected governments, and take over. This is something that all our politicians have to understand.

The CRPF has been galvanised by its new chief, who has always led by example. He has camped with his men in the deepest jungles, raising their morale. He has also been working closely with the state police chiefs, for without their wholehearted cooperation, no operation can succeed. Then what went wrong in Gadchiroli? It appears that all are not still on board in the strategy against the Naxals. It would be worthwhile to find out how the Naxals could meticulously plan the operation in Gadchiroli and eliminate so many jawans, and who passed on information about the CRPF movement into the area? The earlier politicians understand the working of the Naxals, and see the close likeness of the outfit with the LTTE, the better for the country. We cannot go for an all-out war with the Naxals as the Sri Lankans did against the LTTE — we have to be conscious about the collateral damage and civilian casualties that might result in such action. Hence, to succeed, all the political masters in the affected states, and the police chiefs, should work closely with the Centre and the CRPF — any deviation from such a focussed policy will only benefit the Naxals.

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own) 

Radhavinod Raju 

is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail: radhavinodraju@gmail.com 

New Indian Express

08th April 2012 

Afghanistan-Pakistan drama shifts base

By Radhavinod Raju

Mullah Omar’s Taliban is setting up office in Qatar to open negotiations with the United States. It is said that Washington is keen to hold talks with the Taliban outside Pakistan, to curtail its influence on the talks. The Pakistanis herded the Taliban leadership out of Afghanistan before the Americans attacked that country in the wake of 9/11. Though Pakistan has consistently denied this, Mullah Omar and his companions were safely ensconced in safe houses of the ISI in Quetta, and were popularly known as the Quetta Shura. Obviously the Pakistanis believed that the US would pack up and leave Afghanistan sooner than later. Though they may have erred in the timeline, it is a fact that the Americans are ready to leave, and have been looking for an honourable exit route out of Afghanistan. The Pakistani plan was to use the Quetta Shura to establish their influence in Kabul in a future dispensation there, and cut down India’s role. While saying that they support a peace process between and among the Afghans themselves, Pakistan has been trying to get the Western Powers to accept a role for the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani group in the peace process.

The account of Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, former ambassador of the Taliban to Pakistan, given in his book My Life With the Taliban is interesting. According to Mullah Zaeef ‘..the ISI acts at will, abusing and overruling the elected government whenever they deem it necessary. It is a military intelligence administration that is led by Pakistan’s military commanders. It is the combined clandestine services, civil and military. It shackles, detains and releases, and at times it assassinates. Its operations often take place far beyond its own borders, in Afghanistan, India or in Iran’. He further notes: ‘The wolf and sheep may drink water from the same stream, but since the start of the jihad the ISI extended its roots deep into Afghanistan like a cancer puts down roots in the human body; every ruler of Afghanistan complained about it, but none could get rid of it’. From Mullah Zaeef’s account, it appears that the Taliban were themselves not happy about the role of Pakistan in Afghanistan, but had no choice but to accept their protection following the US attack on Afghanistan in October 2001.

Going back to early 2010, one recalls the arrest of a senior Taliban commander, next only to Mullah Omar, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, initially reported to be in a joint operation of the CIA and the Pakistani forces. Subsequent reports challenged this account; one said that the Pakistanis were after Baradar who was engaged in secret talks with the Afghan government keeping the Pakistanis out. While they found him to be in Karachi, they could not pinpoint his exact location. That is why they used the CIA to locate him with their technology, without the CIA knowing exactly who they were after. According to a New York Times report, ‘..seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Baradar, and used the CIA to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s long-time backer’. According to reports doing the rounds in Islamabad at the time, Pakistan’s policy vis-a-vis Afghanistan was to retain decisive influence over the Taliban, thwart arch-enemy India and place Pakistan in a position to shape Afghanistan’s post-war political order. From this it is clear that the Taliban was not averse to getting into talks with Karzai’s government or with the Americans.

Where does that leave the Pakistanis? They still protect the Quetta Shura of Mullah Omar. They also have considerable influence over the Haqqani network. The Pakistanis withstood a lot of American pressure to go after the Haqqani network. Kayani gave excuses like his forces are overstretched, and that they will decide on the timing of the action, etc in order not to attack the Haqqani group. The NATO attack on the two Pakistani posts resulting in the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011 has given Kayani a much-needed breather from American pressure. They have stopped all cooperation with the US saying the relationship between the two countries is under review of the parliament, and further cooperation will be based on a fresh assessment of the rules of engagement. Taxes on NATO supplies through Pakistan and ban on drone strikes are said to be on the agenda.

Though the Americans had realised sometime back that the Pakistanis, who were dependent on generous US aid, were double-crossing them in Afghanistan, yet they continued to maintain a facade of cooperation as they themselves depended on Pakistani cooperation in the war on terror. Pakistan knows that the US cannot do without its assistance, and Washington knows that Islamabad depended on its largesse to run the country. While there is a stalemate now, both are eager to break the impasse. A breakthrough, with face-saving clauses and statements can be expected sooner than later. Where does that leave the peace negotiations between the Taliban and the US?

Pakistan will insist on a role for itself in any future set up in Afghanistan. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is visiting Qatar, to give a brief on Pakistan’s perspective of the peace process. That Gilani has decided to go to Qatar, in spite of the crisis at home, speaks about the importance of the mission. If insights gained from Mullah Zaeef’s accounts and Mullah Baradar’s arrest are anything to go by, how the Taliban itself will view Pakistan’s future role in running their affairs is not clear. Will they accept the Afghan constitution? Will they be willing to share power with the other stakeholders? Will they be given complete sway over the south and east Afghanistan in order to buy peace, a la former Ambassador Blackwill’s proposal to bifurcate Afghanistan? The current dispensation in Afghanistan would view any Pakistani role with suspicion, and will certainly not accept any dominant role for the Taliban in a future set up. As the drama slowly unfolds in Qatar, not only Kabul and Islamabad, but even Tehran, Moscow and New Delhi will watch it with keen interest.

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own) Radhavinod Raju  is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail: radhavinodraju@gmail.com 

New Indian Express

07th February 2012 

Gaps in national security

By Radhavinod Raju

It was in his Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment lecture delivered in New Delhi on December 27, 2009, that Union Home Minister P Chidambaram first outlined a ‘broad architecture of a new security system that will serve the country today and in the foreseeable future’. Chidambaram had visited the United States and seen the functioning of their counter terrorism centre a few months before the lecture. When he delivered the lecture he had completed a little over a year as the Union home minister, and spoke about a new system that would be put in place in India to fight terrorism. He pointed out that there was “… no substitute for the policeman who walks the streets. He is the gatherer of intelligence, the enforcer of the law, the preventer of the offence, the investigator of the crime and the standard-bearer of the authority of the state, all rolled into one. If he is not there, it means that all these functions are not performed. That — the failure to perform essential police functions — is where the rot began and that is where the rot lies even today”. In this connection, Chidambaram referred to the large number of vacancies in the rank of constables; but two years down the road though there has been some improvement, a lot more ground remains to be covered — there are thousands of vacancies in the rank of constables in most states. The recruited constables have to be given training and that continues to be a big roadblock in most of the states, for there is acute shortage of trainers and other infrastructure required for this purpose.

There are over 13,000 police stations in the country, and they function like islands, without communicating with each other. The minister referred to the crime and criminal tracking system that the Centre was pushing through so that the work of the district police, the state police headquarters and the central police organisations is greatly facilitated, especially in the matter of exchanging information pertaining to crime and criminals. Here again, after two years while a lot of ground has been covered, a lot more remains to be covered. The minister also emphasised the need for community policing to enable citizens to interact with the police and wanted a toll-free service for them to pass information or lodge complaints. Chidambaram called for restructuring the intelligence gathering system in the states by having a separate cadre for the state special branch and for setting up quick reaction teams in all the districts to respond to attack of terrorists.

While referring to the improvements already introduced by him, like his daily meetings attended by the national security adviser and other intelligence chiefs for better coordination, and the strengthening of the multi agency centre at the central level and the state MACs where the state special branch also participates in the meeting on intelligence sharing, the minister said that the government was better informed and the agencies are more alert. However this did not mean that we could prevent or pre-empt terrorist attacks. He observed that the various agencies at the Centre like the Intelligence Bureau, the R&AW, the JIC, the Defence Intelligence Agencies, and the Financial Intelligence Agencies, etc do not report to a single authority and there is no single or unified command which can issue directions to these agencies and bodies.

Chidambaram also mentioned the need to integrate different databases which contain vital and sensitive information, but do not share it with each other. He said that the central government has decided to create the National Intelligence Grid for this purpose, and said that in 18 to 24 months it would be in place. However due to concerns raised by various ministries and fears of breaching of privacy laws, it took the government about 18 months to clear the first phase of this programme.

But the most ambitious proposal of Chidambaram was the setting up of the National Counter Terrorism Centre with the goal of ‘preventing a terrorist attack, containing a terrorist attack should one take place and responding to a terrorist attack by inflicting pain upon the perpetrators’. He said that this organisation had to be created from scratch. While the United States did it within 36 months of 9/11 Chidambaram said that we did not have 36 months, but had to decide immediately to set up the NCTC by the end of 2010.The Cabinet Committee on Security cleared the proposal of the minister only a couple of days back, over 24 months after the proposal was first mooted, overshooting Chidambaram’s target already by over 12 months.

Many well-wishers have been waiting for the NCTC ever since Chidambaram outlined his plan, having realised the importance of a coordinated approach to fight terrorism. Once it is set up the NCTC would have to perform functions relating to intelligence collection, investigation and operations. All intelligence agencies would therefore have to be represented in the NCTC. According to the minister MAC with expanded authority will be at the core of the new organisation. So the actual work, or the nitty-gritty of setting up the NCTC will start now — bringing together the intelligence, investigation and operational components together. The minister had hoped that there would be no turf wars, as the NCTC will have to have oversight responsibilities of a number of existing agencies. He also said that the NCTC will have to have, apart from MAC, the NIA, the NCRB, the NTRO, the JIC and the NSG as part of it, and that positioning the R & AW, the ARC and the CBI under the NCTC to the extent that they deal with terrorism will have to be looked into. Unless the minister, with the backing of his colleagues in the Cabinet Committee on Security, personally follows up and ensures implementation, this would be an extremely difficult, if not impossible exercise.

It would be useful to see to what extent the various projects the minister unveiled in his lecture in December 2009, have been implemented. This would be useful in the implementation of the NCTC, especially where it concerns the states, who hold the key to implementation of some of the key projects in the states. It would also be necessary to examine whether any changes are required to be made in the NIA Act to make it more effective. Though the Act provides that the central government can direct the NIA to take over any case mandated by the Act without the concerned state’s consent, in practice it is seen that the Centre is cautious in this regard, raising questions about the Act itself.

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own) 

Radhavinod Raju is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail: radhavinodraju@gmail.com 

New Indian Express

17th January 2012

Pakistan gambit in Afghanistan

By Radhavinod Raju

Pakistan kept its threat to boycott the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan which took place on December 5, where over a hundred countries participated and renewed their commitments for peace, stability and development of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s proxies, the Afghan Taliban, led by Mullah Omar, headquartered in Quetta, also boycotted the conference, rendering the conference itself meaningless if the aim was to reconcile the different warring Afghan groups. In these circumstances, there was no question of the Haqqani group, operating mainly from North Waziristan, taking part in the conference. This is following a pre-dawn airborne NATO attack on two Pakistani posts on the Af-Pak border in Mohmand Agency on November 26, resulting in the deaths of 26 Pakistani soldiers.

This ‘unprovoked’ attack has once again raised a serious question mark on Pak-US strategic relationship, and their war on terror. Apart from boycotting the conference, the other major actions taken by Pakistan is to block the supplies to the NATO war effort, which pass through Pakistan, and is vital for their operations in Afghanistan; asking the United States to vacate the Shamsi Air Base in Balochistan from where the drones were being operated against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in North and South Waziristan, and; the decision to revisit the terms of their engagement with the United States and NATO/ISAF ‘on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual interest and mutual respect’. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that “our willingness to cooperate with the international community on counter-terrorism has not been understood in its proper perspective. The notion to give Pakistan a ‘to do’ list and the mantra of ‘do more’ have caused immense resentment”.

Relations between the ‘strategic partners’ had been spiralling downwards following the Raymond Davis affair early this year, after the Pakistani police arrested the American for shooting and killing two people who allegedly wanted to rob him. He was reported to be working with the CIA, tracking militants in remote areas. His alleged links with the CIA further exacerbated the relations, with Islamabad demanding to reduce the number of CIA intelligence operatives in Pakistan. Though the Americans succeeded in getting Davis released from custody and had him whisked away home after paying blood money, relations were no longer the same between the partners. It was on top of this that the US Navy SEALs flew into Abbottabad in helicopters and eliminated the world’s most wanted terrorist, al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The Americans showed scant regard for Pakistani ‘sovereignty’ and the successful operation was a slap on the face of the Pakistani generals whose image in the country took a beating. To tell the country and the world that bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, close to an important army establishment, during the last nearly five years, was not known to the ISI was bad enough. To admit their failure to detect the movement of the SEALs’ helicopters into Pakistan from their base in Afghanistan, and their presence in Abbottabad for nearly an hour, must have been a humiliation too hard to digest. President Barack Obama’s statement from London that they will not hesitate to repeat the operation were they to get intelligence about a high-value target in Pakistan only worsened matters.

Not that the Taliban and the Haqqani group were silent during all this time. The killing of Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading the High Peace Council of Afghan President Haimd Karzai for talks with various Afghan groups, including the Taliban, was a Taliban operation. Pakistan and the Taliban were unhappy with the initiative taken by Karzai to talk to all the Afghan groups without taking Pakistan on board. The Haqqani group was responsible for a spectacular attack in Kabul, targeting the US Embassy and NATO headquarters. This attack prompted the retiring US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, to call the Haqqani group a “veritable arm of the ISI”. Though the United States government disassociated itself from Mullen’s claim, many influential Americans supported the admiral’s conclusion.

Pakistan is not happy about the strategic partnership that the Afghanistan government has signed with India, with provisions for training the Afghan security forces in India. General Kayani is worried about the Indian ‘mind-set’ that the Afghans would acquire in this process. The United States is also working out a strategic partnership with the Afghanistan government, indicating that the US will not pack up and leave Afghanistan. They have plans to retain bases in Afghanistan, and keep a sharp eye on forces hostile to them planning attacks on their homeland. Both these developments would check Pakistani ambitions in Afghanistan — this is an emerging situation that Pakistan dislikes.

It was in these circumstances that the NATO/ISAF attack took place on the Pakistani posts. The question is whether the Americans would go for such an attack in the background of worsening Pak-US ties risking their vital supplies to Afghanistan and the impending Bonn Conference on Afghanistan’s future, unless there was some grave provocation, calling for the attack. The Bonn Conference was important for the Americans with their presidential elections round the corner, and their plans to exit from Afghanistan depending on Pakistan and their influence with the Taliban. America invited Pakistan to join the investigations into the mishap, but the latter refused. So who provoked the attack?

The current impasse has suited Pakistan, or rather, the ‘Deep State’ as the army establishment is known there. They would like to play an important role in any plans for Afghanistan, keeping India out. The American dependence on Pakistan for getting their supplies to Afghanistan is well known. The northern route through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is not good enough for the supplies to reach the NATO/ISAF, and is fraught with uncertainties more acute than those in Pakistan. Pakistan hopes that the US will finally come round to seeing their point of view. This probably explains Pakistan’s brinkmanship in boycotting the Bonn Conference, in spite of repeated calls from Washington for its participation.

(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own) 

Radhavinod Raju 

is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail:  radhavinodraju@gmail.com 

New Indian Express

19th December 2011