Role of police in countering terrorism

An international study by Rand Corporation titled ‘How Terrorist Groups End: Implications for countering al Qa’ida’ has shown that they rarely end as a result of winning or losing a military campaign. According to the study, which looked at a period covering 38 years from 1968 to 2006, and covered 648 terrorist groups that were active in different parts of the world, most groups ended not because of military victories of the governments concerned over them, but because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies against them, or their joining the political process through a negotiation process. This study was done by Rand in the context of the military campaign of the United States against al Qaeda, on the premise that the US cannot conduct an effective counter-terrorism campaign without understanding how such conflicts end in the first place. This study is reportedly the first such systematic study on how terrorist groups end. The study found that out of the 648 groups that had taken to terror in this period, 268 ended during this period covering 38 years, 136 groups splintered and 244 continued to remain active. The study showed that of those that ended, 40 percent had been penetrated and eliminated by the local police and intelligence agencies, while 43 percent reached a peaceful accommodation with their governments. Ten percent of the groups ended after attaining victory in their campaign, while only seven percent ended because of military victories of the governments over the terrorist groups. Military victories became possible only when the groups were large, well-armed and well organized. The victory of the Sri Lankan army over the large, well-organized and well-armed group, the LTTE, in May, 2009, is a case in point. The fact that the study was completed in 2006, while the LTTE was militarily eliminated only in May, 2009, buttresses the arguments in the study.
In our own case, there were several groups which had raised the banner of revolt, taking to arms and terror. The naxal movement in Kerala is a case in point. This movement which started in the late sixties was effectively crippled by local police action.  The economic opportunities that the Gulf opened up ensured that the movement did not rise again in Kerala. Sikh terrorism was effectively ended in the Punjab due to Punjab police action, by penetrating the militant ranks and eliminating them. Not very well known is the effective tackling of the al Fatah movement in Kashmir in the early seventies by the Kashmir police, by penetrating the movement, and bringing a number of the disgruntled youth into the mainstream. We unfortunately do not go back to our old lessons, or undertake studies similar to the one done by Rand, which would help governments in adopting the correct policies in handling such situations.


India has been a victim of terrorism sponsored from hostile neighborhoods for the last several decades. However, till the early nineties, terrorism was confined to specific regions, like the Northeast, Punjab or Jammu & Kashmir. Till then we had also shown our capabilities to tackle the problem using State power represented by its security and intelligence agencies, the genuine political space available to all Indian citizens for political expression, and India’s economic opportunities.
The defeat of the USSR in the Afghan theatre in the late eighties/early nineties gave Pakistan an opportunity to divert the jihadists free from Afghanistan, armed with the latest sophisticated weapons, to Kashmir to try and exploit the situation there. Recent publications by Pakistani academics and journalists show that General Zia, having realized that India cannot be defeated in a conventional war, and smarting under the 1971 defeat of the Pakistan army at the hands of the Indian army, had mounted plans for a Kashmir jihad in the early eighties. He used the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan along with the ISI, to execute the plan. Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and our Kashmir were later co-opted in this scheme. The overall plan appeared to be to train Kashmiri youth in armed sabotage to weaken India’s hold in the state, and set up sleeper cells in the rest of India. The jihadists would then engage India in an asymmetric war, funded and armed by the ISI, which would give Pakistan easy deniability, inflict a thousand bleeding cuts on India, break it, and snatch Kashmir from India. After over two decades of terrorist mayhem, despite not having gained an inch of territory, Pakistan has not given up this obsession. In the meanwhile, many of the jihadists who were nourished by Pakistan, have turned against them, and have set their own agenda. Interrogation of LeT militants in Kashmir, and the LeT statements carried in the media, indicated that for the jihadists Kashmir was only a gateway to the heart of India, and not an end in itself.

The Home Ministry has currently banned 34 outfits as terrorist organizations. The geographical spread of these organizations covers the whole of India. Most of them operate in Jammu & Kashmir, followed by the Northeast.  The LeT and the Jaish are based in Pakistan. Notwithstanding the denials of support to these terrorist groups from that country, Pakistan has not taken any strong visible action against them, though their actions in India brought the two countries on the verge of open war.
                         The Naxalites have added yet another dimension to the terrorist mosaic in this country. They have killed a large number of security personnel, and have attacked a number of sensitive establishments, including police stations and prisons, and made off with large quantities of arms and ammunition.
  There is evidence of links between the different terrorist groups, as all of them have a common enemy, the Indian State. The actions of the terrorists in different parts of India, at times and places of their choosing,  do give an impression that the State is not able to effectively deal with them and prevent them from wanton destruction of life and property. The State is indeed shown in poor light.
  The Army and paramilitary forces have been used to assist in the Punjab, Northeast and in Jammu & Kashmir, and have so far done a good job. The paramilitary is used in anti-naxal operations also. However, while handling insurgency type of operations, it needs to be seen and appreciated that the local police have a much larger chance of success against anti-national elements, without alienating the people of the region. This is because the police are from among the people, can understand local conditions better, and can almost always collect pin pointed information about terrorists which would invariably rule out collateral damage during operations. Even in recent times, actions of the Army and paramilitary forces in Kashmir have attracted criticism, leading to alienation of the people. On the other hand, even if police at times take high-handed actions, though there is demand for the guilty to be punished, the entire force is not hated.
  The jihadists are now targeting sensitive and vulnerable parts of India, outside Jammu & Kashmir and are likely to continue to do so.  The 26/11 Mumbai attack was on the financial capital of India.  Targets were carefully chosen like the iconic Taj and Oberoi Hotels patronized by the country’s elite and foreigners, Leopold Café, the CST and Chabad House. The long duration of the attack, and the unprecedented media coverage worldwide, gave the impression of a powerful terrorist onslaught catching the state napping.  The ISI has set up several sleeper cells in India. Several terrorist cells were broken and neutralized by the police and security forces in Jammu & Kashmir in the last few years. Some of the modules were operating from towns in Haryana, Delhi, Saharanpur, towns of Rajasthan, Mumbai and Hyderabad.  There were other modules which were operating from different cities and towns of India, including Calcutta and Bangalore. The ISI has made full use of Muslim fears and hurt following the Babri Masjid demolition, Gujarat riots and general apprehensions in Muslim minds to attract small groups of youngsters in India to the jihadist path and to take up arms against India. The Indian Mujahideen is a manifestation of this plan of the ISI, which would also give them easy deniability. They now have the capability to strike at any place in India of their choosing. It may not be feasible, or possible to deploy Army and the paramilitaries in all these places. The role of the local police in the affected States would therefore increase in significance. They have the capability to infiltrate local sympathizers and supporters of the terrorists, and neutralize the modules, or even to wean away the misguided youth from the wrong path. They are in the best position to develop advance intelligence and neutralize ISI modules. All that the police needs is appropriate training, weapons, constant flow of all the latest in-puts about terrorist plans and activities, and backing of the Government. This exercise will be far more cost and resource effective, and is the best suited for us. Rand Corporation study, and our own earlier experience in counter-terrorism, further strengthens this view.
The one dis-advantage is that the state police organizations work within themselves, as islands. There is need for co-operation and co-ordination between the various state police organizations in India to tackle terrorism. The National Investigation Agency, which is the apex anti-terrorism agency of the government of India, has undertaken this task of co-coordinating between different state police forces, and also works closely with the central and state intelligence agencies to act in consort against terrorism.
             
James Kitfield said in "al-Qaeda's pandemic" ("National Review" September 1, 2006) quoting Mario Mancuso, former Deputy Assistant Secretary, US Department of Defense: "Global insurgency reacts to Osama bin Laden s radical ideology almost like distant and seemingly disconnected light particles respond in unison to an unseen wave". In my writings I had gone back into Indian history to trace how extremist feelings were nurtured at different times but ignored on political grounds. The sudden rise in extremist feelings after Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 could be attributed to such latent feelings which have been lying dormant. ( Please see my paper " Indigenous support to cross border/Jehadi terrorism with special reference to Indian Mujahideen/SIMI and the likes" - Paper presented to SIES Seminar on "Countering terrorism in India: Challenges of the 21st Century" - Mumbai University, August 31 - September 2, 2009.).

Force Magazine  April 2011