It’s a Miracle Over-Crowded India Doesn’t Invite Nice-Like Attacks

Nice terror attack highlights the need to have a grip on crowd management by Indian security agencies.

Shocking incidents like Thursday’s Nice attack by a terrorist who ploughed his truck through a crowd of revellers celebrating Bastille Day or a bunch of boys, high on martyrdom, butchering hapless diners at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka on July 1 should normally be a regular occurrence in India. That it does not happen frequently and with such barbarity is nothing short of a divine relief.

We are a country of billion-plus people that congregate in religious, cultural and political gatherings everywhere and we have overcrowded temples, markets, hospitals, restaurants, railway stations and festivals, waiting for terrorists to attack and keep the nation on the boil. However, we have somehow managed to escape from the bloodletting now being experienced in Europe and West Asia.

The escape is miraculous given our security constraints. We do not have enough policemen to guard all our institutions and congregations all the time with the same intensity. Our propensity to celebrate is so raucous and at such enormous scale that it stretches the security resources of the state to their limits. The private security that protects financial institutions is not capable of thwarting a terrorist attack.

Token Police Presence

At public places, policemen maintain only a token routine presence because they are few in numbers. Though phone calls of suspects are intercepted, CCTV cameras are installed to watch their activities and aerial reconnaissance is carried out to find if any mischief is brewing in some part of the crowd, these measures cannot prevent sustained terrorist strikes such as in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Similarly, the intelligence agencies that keep an eye on potential trouble makers and help the police in neutralising terrorist modules cannot be expected to provide actionable and timely intelligence on a 24X7 basis year after year, because penetrating terrorist outfits on a regular basis is the hardest thing to do.

Some Misguided Minorities

What makes the agencies’ task really difficult is the presence of a section of Muslims amongst us who have misguided animus against the Indian state and are victims of Pakistan and the ISI’s propaganda to keep the country troubled and fractious. While Hindus and other minorities also have grievances for which they protest on streets and vandalise government property, this small minority of Muslims is a unique threat since they try to carve a constituency of aggrieved and agitated people at Pakistan’s behest, who see India as an enemy and believe in using bloodshed as a means to realise their goals.

Weirdly, they are to be treated like any one of us till they are proven guilty. This makes the task of intelligence and law enforcement agencies tougher in prosecuting them because conclusive evidence does not come easily and the community is reluctant to volunteer assistance.

Being on Guard

• Nice-like incidents raises security concerns for citizens in India since our security apparatus cannot contain a terror strike of this scale.
  
• Intelligence agencies have repeatedly failed in averting terror attacks due to absence of precision in busting terrorist modules.
  
• Intelligence gathering has improved slightly due to sustained cooperation of state governments, an important stakeholder in national security.
  
• Instances of fabricated cases makes prosecution even more difficult.
  

Security Has Improved

The reason why terrorist attacks are few and far between in recent days is not hard to find. It is not that the usual suspects have given up plans to bomb, scare, assassinate and cause communal clashes or that there has been a drop in the ISI’s interference in our security situation. The policing of targeted areas has, of late, been reasonably effective and the surveillance of suspects’ movements tighter than ever before.

Intelligence gathering seems to have picked up steam and there is practically no protest or lack of support to the NIA from state governments in apprehending suspects. Occasionally, we do hear voices of protest from a few, accusing agencies of picking up innocents and harassing them, but these quickly die out when confronted by a growing number of assertive nationalists.

Letting Security Forces Work

A national consensus is also slowly emerging to let the police act and ignore protests that are motivated by mischievous concerns.

The security and intelligence agencies now appear to be mentally better equipped to press the suspects hard. In the changed political dispensation, security forces are not humiliated as P Chidambaram would do after a botched up operation but they are patted on their back and asked to regroup quickly to fight another day.

There is, however, no room for complacency for the security forces. Possibilities of terrorist attacks remain immense. Many David Headleys may still be prowling around, boys may be getting trained to kill or a truck may be ready to barrel through a crowd. The horror of Mumbai is also not too far behind. The only way to stop history from repeating is never to drop the vigil and act strongly but discreetly lest courts and guardians of civil society allege state terrorism.

(The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat)

Also read:

Mohamed Bouhlel, the Nice Truck Attacker: What We Know So Far

Celebrities Pray For Peace and the Victims Of Nice Terror Attack