Millions of dollars were spent on research designed to increase intelligence surveillance capabilities. There is no cash crunch and considerable intelligence related activity is now outsourced to the private sector. The British too plan to build a massive government data base of every phone call, email and time spent on the internet by the public. This is in continuation of a similar EU directive in operation since last October. In India, every terrorist action evokes the same national response. Important politicians visit the scene, promise zero tolerance, suspend a few policemen, dole out compensation, the media pronounces intelligence failure, allegations and counter allegations fly, experts pontificate on TV, momentous decisions that bicycles can be purchased only with ID cards are taken and we move on till the next incident takes place.

In a recent commentary, Dr Ajai Sahni of Institute of Conflict Management, has referred to recommendations made by the Intelligence Task Force following the Kargil War. Two of these recommendations related, rather optimistically, to the establishment of a Multi Agency Centre (MAC) for collecting and coordinating terrorism related information from all over the country and a Joint Task Force on Intelligence (JTFI) responsible for passing on this information to state governments in real time. “Regrettably”, Dr. Sahni asserts, “both MAC and JTFI remain understaffed, under equipped and ineffective, with even basic issues relating to their administration unsettled. Their principal objective, creation of a national terrorism data base, has made little progress.” He also pointed out that the police force in our country averages only 126 per 100,000 apart from being ill-equipped and ill-trained, whereas in the Western countries this figure is double. In the years ahead terrorists will select soft targets for maximum effect and ease of operation.

They will also target the private sector, the economy and the more networked India gets, the more vulnerable we become to cyber terror that could cripple government networks and financial institutions. Some 23 per cent of British businesses were attacked by malicious software in 2007.
Even the character of the terrorist has changed from the stereotyped version to the boy or girl next door well educated and techno savvy.

Terrorist organisations have been using the Internet as a discussion forum, library, sounding board; it is also used for spreading hate, planning attacks, recruitment, messaging and training. Funds are raised on the internet and email addresses, account numbers and names changed frequently. Al Qaeda (estimated to have 5,600 websites with 900 added each year), Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have all used this technology.

B Raman, an analyst, had warned in 2000 that the Pakistanis had launched a project to systematically develop IT capability to reduce the gap between the non-Islamic and Islamic world. He wrote about a project called Operation Badar designed to provide high-quality low-cost web application education. The founder of this project was Ziaullah Khan, resident in the US, who wanted to raise 313 “Java Mujahedeen architects” spread all over the world and 10,000 developers. The battle of Badar was the most important battle in the life of Prophet Mohammed who had only 313 warriors to fight the battle and later 10,000 saint soldiers Faran (Muslim soldiers) had assembled to join Him in the march to Mecca. Whether this is just a Pakistani obsession with religious symbolism or it signifies battles of another kind, is difficult to say but it is also difficult to ignore, considering the contribution the Pakistani state has made to terror in India and globally.

There is no magic solution for the various kinds of problems we have in India. We need to strengthen existing counter terror bodies, including intelligence agencies before creating new ones, if we want to succeed. It has to be accepted that beyond a point intelligence agencies find it hard to share information about sources with other agencies. This is a universal truth and not India-specific. Inadequate information leads to indiscriminate arrests and creates more terrorists in almost the same manner as a Predator attack does. The citizen must be given the confidence that the State is working for him and not at him; only then will he share information with the State. The governance has to improve vastly in some parts of the country, justice has to be speedy and the writ of the state must be visible. Our IT protocols have to be tightened.

Publicity is oxygen to the terrorist's cause and he has to be starved of this. All of us, especially the media, have to ensure that in our reporting, the terrorist or his act is not lionised. The terrorist wins each time gruesome pictures reach families in their homes as they sit down to watch their favourite programmes on the box or read newspapers. The choice between what to report and how to report is always going to be a difficult one. Describing him as a militant instead of a terrorist is to give him respectability and calling him a fedayeen is to glorify a killer. Battling terror is going to be long, hard and frustrating because the terrorist is often one of us and does not wear a special badge.

Courtesy: Mail today