On January 2 2016, The Pathankot Air Base in Punjab got
attacked by trained militants of Pakistan. While we were busy welcoming the new
year, some of our soldiers gave up their lives fighting the terrorists. Their
families will forever remember the New Year as a black day in their lives. The
incident shook the nation and has raised alarming questions over our national
security systems. Predictably, the
long-drawn out militant attack on the Pathankot airbase has generated waves of
criticism across the country with some finding fault with the government’s
handling of the issue, and others questioning the entire rationale of Modi’s
Pakistan strategy and focusing on the conduct of operations in Pathankot.
Pattern of terrorists sneaking in from
Pakistan and launching attack on high profile targets within hours of
infiltration has been the new pattern in the last couple of years. In July this
year a similar attack was launched in Gurudaspur by terrorists who came in from
across the border.
The Pathankot terror attack is a huge
national embarrassment. There can be no arguments over it. It has exposed the
inefficiency and incompetence of our intelligence agencies, Punjab Police and
the lack of coordination among the various agencies involved in taking on the
terrorists and flushing them out.All this happened near one of the most heavily guarded international borders in the world.
Pathankot incident should be treated like a national embarrassment and some serious actions are needed.
More men on the border
In Jammu and Kashmir, a BSF company (about 100 men) guards an average frontage of 2.75km. In Punjab it covers 5.6km, underlining an urgent need of more men and equipment on international border.
Strengthen intelligence
Garner more real-time actionable inputs, especially from human sources. Also need better-trained officers to glean such intelligence more effectively.
Bust the narcotics route
Thriving cross-border drug smuggling network is suspected to be providing an extensive logistics support to terror outfits based in Pakistan.
A clear structure
For operations involving multiple security agencies like the NSG, army and police, a clear command and control structure can check any gaps in coordination at an operation level.
Bridging the gap
Experts pointed out huge gaps in vigilance, planning, coordination and counter-terrorism force application during the operations.
Security audit
A thorough security audit, in a time-bound manner, at all vulnerable military installations would work to address lacunae in the existing security architecture.
Although the main target was “geared to drive a wedge” between India and Pakistan , media on both sides of the border concluded that calling off talks would adhere to the script of those who want to perpetuate the climate of distrust between the two nuclear-armed countries and by not calling off talks immediately after the attack, the Indian government seems to have indicated it will not allow the terrorist groups the satisfaction of achieving those aims. A sustained dialogue is the only fitting answer to terrorist groups and to their handlers inside the Pakistan establishment who wish to destabilize the peace process.
Delhi must, however, bring to the table a clear agenda for the actions it needs to take and expects Pakistan to take on terrorism.
Hope, it will be the last such embarrassment.
