Gurdaspur attack: Our police needs to learn how to face terror
July 27th – a day after the nation celebrated Kargil Vijay Diwas – saw yet another terrorist attack launched from Pakistan being foiled, and many lives were lost in doing so. This strike was different in that it targeted Punjab.
Originating from Pakistan, as confirmed by the home minister, the attack was an attempt to open another front – this time in Punjab, perhaps to ease the pressure being felt by terror outfits in Jammu and Kashmir. The attack was the usual ISI-orchestrated attempt to make it seem like a strike from lumpen elements of the Khalistan movement, to forment discord and hence a police station was made the target.
Punjab is no stranger to terror attacks, having combatted insurgency for over 20 years, finally stamping out militancy in 1993. The police, starting with the legendary KPS Gill, have built significant capabilities. The response of the Punjab police contrasted with the paralysis of the Mumbai police on 26/11, except for isolated acts of heroism and the initiative personified by sub inspector Tukaram Omble. The difference between the two terror strikes was clearly the response of the police and citizenry.
The determination of the Punjab police to use their own teams to flush out the terrorists was commendable. Despite some visible deficiencies, they have provided the rest of the nation with a viable model. Specialist forces like National Security Guard (NSG) cannot be everywhere and always take time to deploy from their base - especially, at the early stages of a terror attack, when our responses should be the swiftest.
Every one of our experiences, like 26/11 massacre or the IC-814 hijacking, have snowballed into major confrontations or capitulation because of sluggish early responses. That is what makes the first response - from our local police forces - critical to how a terrorist attack shapes up or is blunted. Here, the Punjab police signalled its capabilities effectively – as a far more effective first responder than the Mumbai police was during the 2008 attacks. That is the future of our fight against terrorism – better equipped and trained specialist teams in our state police forces as the first line of defence, backed by special forces of the NSG and the Army if the situation requires.
The other hallmark of the Punjab attack was the role of two ordinary citizens who turned heroes that day. One was the vigilant railway man Ashwani Kumar, who raised an alarm after spotting pressure bombs on the Pathankot-Amritsar railway line moments before a train with more than 200 people could reach the point. The other was the Punjab Roadways bus driver Nanak Chand, who refused to stop for the terrorists who were trying to flag down the bus, since he found the heavily armed “soldiers” suspicious. His intuition saved the lives of the 80 people on the bus. The casualties of the terror attack would have been higher if it weren’t for the two alert citizens.
The role of citizens and the state police in foiling a terror attack shows how far we have come from 26/11, when Mumbai and its people were brought to their knees by a group of terrorists waiting for the NSG to arrive from Delhi.
In the months after 26/11, I had chaired a committee with some of the country’s best security minds - including the current NSA Ajit Doval. Our panel's report on national security and terrorism had stressed, among other things, the use of technology as well as the importance of local police as effective response to terrorist attacks. Such retaliation, as shown by the Punjab police, raises the chorus on the benefits of equipping and training the police force better. However, more needs to be done to modernise the response and intelligence. Without a proper platform to rapidly integrate, analyse and deliver intelligence (both Sigint and Humint) to local police forces, our counter terror strategy will remain vulnerable. This logic should be extended to the hinterland, which is prone to attacks, as we saw in Gurdaspur.
In addition, better police cover is required and that means states must recruit more police personnel. With more than 900 vacancies in the IPS cadre alone, and our Police Population Ratio is at 138 (fifth lowest among 71 countries for which such data is maintained). UP leads the race, with more than 50 per cent of the posts in the police force lying vacant. The government needs to expand our police forces before it is too late, and crime and terrorism get a strong foothold.
The latest terror strike is a wake-up call for all state governments that we continue to live in uneasy times, and if we are to defend ourselves, we need to urgently transform our police forces and bolster them as the first responders who must deal with the clear and present danger of terrorism.