Terrorism-What India Can Do?

A woman along with her kid lights candles to pay homage to bomb blast victims in Guwahati on Friday.

As India becomes a prime target of a cocktail of terrorist groups, the country needs to take a radical relook at the anti-terror laws which leave much to be desired. The pitfalls in the legal system have allowed the accused in the transistor bomb blasts in Delhi to go scot free even after 23 years. With cases like the Mumbai blasts and the Delhi serial blasts still unsolved, terrorist groups feel emboldened and have continued to strike at Indian targets without fear. "Terrorists have a unified command and control system while India's response is scattered and sometimes absent," says an intelligence official. Though India has been at the forefront seeking a comprehensive UN convention on terrorism-wanting action against countries providing financial help and harbouring terrorists-differences on the definition of terrorism have grounded progress. The abolition of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in 2004 and the politicisation of its anti-terror response has left India with no effective Central law to counter terrorism.
Worse, five states, which have lobbied for their own legislations, have found their bills gathering dust in the judicial division of the Home Ministry. Gujarat's case for an organised anti-terror law has been pending since 2004, Rajasthan has not heard from the Centre since January 2006, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have seen their anti-terror bills pending since last year.
The lack of an effective anti-terror legislation is worsened by an abysmal police-population ratio of 126 per 1,00,000 (as against Western ratios that vary between 250 and over 500 per 1,00,000); Gujarat has a ratio of 152 per 1,00,000 (above the national average, but well below the 222 per 1,00,000 recommended internationally for peacetime policing). Moreover, policing is primitive in comparison to the modern resources that have been committed for law enforcement in the West. There are deficits in police staffing levels of between 10-40 per cent in various states. Globally it has been accepted that terrorism cannot be treated as a simple law and order problem, and with terrorists becoming more advanced and many functioning with active help of countries that harbour them, it requires an extraordinary response to tackle them.
The USA Patriot Act of 2001 (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001) has allowed the US security agencies to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial and other records and eased restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States.
The US experience of creating a Department of Homeland Security with the avowed objective of protecting the country from terrorist attacks needs to be replicated in India with the Central Law Enforcement Agency to fight terror. Countries like Australia have given, "stop and search" powers to their police, which allows the police to stop and search people. The country also has a "Control order", that allows the police to approach a closed court and ask for restrictions to be placed on someone who poses a terror threat. The restrictions can limit who the suspect can talk to, where the person can go and what devices the suspect can use (phone and Internet). The UK's new Counter Terrorism Bill extends the pre-charge detention of terror suspects from 28 days to 42 days. Even Bangladesh has implemented new terror laws creating special tribunals to hear terror cases and clear these in six months with a provision of death penalty for terrorism and financing of terrorism. India, meanwhile, careens from blast to blast. "India's police and intelligence forces-with tiny exceptions-remain overwhelmingly undermanned, under-resourced and primitive in their day-to-day functioning. India has failed even to create a national database on crime and terrorism-despite a mandate to create it and support organisational structures, including the Multi-Agency Centre and the Joint Task Force on Intelligence in the Intelligence Bureau, that dates back to 2001," says Ajai Sahni, executive director, Institute for Conflict Management. India needs to take out a leaf from global laws to tackle terrorism besides re-arming its human intelligence network which is important to ward off terror attacks.
It also has to set up a real-time information sharing system with key intelligence agencies to avert terror attacks. Another important aspect is to work on its border management and control policies, because ineffective monitoring of its porous borders with Bangladesh and Nepal has made these into safe transit points for terrorists. While India will have to fight its own battle against terror, it will have to ensure that its laws have teeth, with checks and balances, to combat the scourge of terrorism