India's security forces lack ability to stop terror attacks, say analysts
By Channel NewsAsia's Smita Prakash | Posted: 28 November 2008 0054 hrs

	Photos  of

NEW DELHI: The latest attack in Mumbai is the worst to hit India since 2006 when several bombs ripped through rush hour trains in the city. Some 200 people were killed and many hundreds more injured.

In the past few months, there has been a string of terrorist strikes in India.

India's commercial metropolis Mumbai was once again the target of terrorists. Eleven crowded places were attacked, resulting in over a 100 dead and 300 injured.

Gunmen belonging to a little known terror outfit called the Deccan Mujahideen shot indiscriminately into crowds and hurled grenades at innocent bystanders. This was clearly an elaborate plan hatched to precision. The scale of operation was unprecedented in India.

But the country has been witnessing a spate of terror attacks in the past few months.

In serial blasts in northeast India in October, some 60 lives were lost. On September 29, a bomb placed in a motorbike in Malegaon in Maharashtra killed five.

Hundreds were killed this year and several hundred maimed in terror strikes, but none of the cases have been solved and not a single conviction secured. These attacks have clearly shown the inability of the Indian security forces to prevent the attacks.

Uday Bhaskar, former director, Institute of Defence Studies, said: "Clearly, there has been a certain inadequacy or a lapse in security arrangements. The fact that this particular group - whether it is one group or more than one group - could carry and transport arms, explosives in this manner into these hotels, and other parts does suggest a breach. ... this is the reason I also think there may have been some degree of local involvement."

The Deccan Mujahideen, which has claimed responsibility for this attack in Mumbai, is a little known group.

It is still not clear whether it has links to the Indian Mujahideen which had taken responsibility for the September blasts in New Delhi and is supposed to be providing for terror outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, groups headquartered in other parts of the Indian subcontinent.

Mr Bhaskar continued: "In the past also we've had groups like the Indian Mujahideen which have come on the radar in the Malegaon blasts and some other incidents in India.

"What appeared to be the case is that there seems to be a certain fervour which I would link with what is happening in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the way in which the ideology or motivation is being provided by the Islamic international front."

There have been many calls made in the past to revamp intelligence gathering and police the borders better. But what is lacking is a coherent approach to tackle terror.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his government have been facing flak from opposition parties for going soft on terror. This will be a charge that the Congress Party is likely to find difficult to challenge ahead of the general elections a few months away.

The strikes are also going to negatively impact the financial market, which is already seeing foreign investors taking their money out of the county. - CNA/vm