Unsolved Pune blasts: It’s all about low officer pay

Is there a link between the Pune serial blasts last week and the pay-scale of the Intelligence gatherers whose job it is to police such attacks – or any other incident – such that it can be prevented? Possibly. For, it is about a week since the blast took place on Jungli Maharaj Road and it still remains a whodunit, the police groping for answers after initially dismissing it, in an ill-advised swift, inane assessment as being ‘mischief’. Later, our newly-minted Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde called it ‘small’ but ‘serious’ incident. Then came the media leaks from New Delhi, either fact-based or speculative, or even as a red herring that the first Indian Mujahidin module which still remains, could be the culprits. They, it appears, have not even been spotted. [caption id=“attachment_407321” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  It is about a week since the blast took place on Jungli Maharaj Road and it still remains a whodunit. PTI[/caption] The relentless attacks on sites in Maharashtra since March 1993 brings the searchlight on the Intelligence community which always says it knows, or pretends it does, that it could put together the jigsaw and name an organisation. Why is it that invariably, the knowledge is post-facto? The authorities always make out that they are in relentless pursuit of the culprits, stoking an impression via the media that things are moving in the right direction. Setting up of new organisations with spiffy names and nice acronyms has not ensured proper strengthening of Intelligence. Maharashtra is as good an example as any, though it grandly moved to set up what Home Minister RR Patil talks of as a new unit which is ‘special’ and ‘elite’. They are a set of new recruits who are a class part from the local flat-foots. The very creation of this arrangement, which RR Patil as State Home Minister then and now has never resisted is a clear admission of the failure of the then existing network of the state employed spooks. Unless of course, it was an effort to show that have slipped every time. The low pay is sure way of attracting only those who patrol, less those who want to solve crime, which by its very nature demands a higher calibre and higly motivated force. The head constable (Rs 20,000) and assistant sub-inspector (Rs 25,000) make so little money that those key positions of patrol and intelligence will never get the best. The new cadre if Intelligence officials set up with the intention to boost gathering of information and analysing them comprises of even post-graduates but they could not be retained. That some fled the assignment even during their training speaks a lot for it. By mulling three-year bonds and fines should a recruit leave the Intelligence, the state government has failed to spot the flaw which has seen 12 Assistant Intelligence Officers from a batch of 70 quitting. In an earlier batch, eight had opted out, hooked by the lure of the private sector which of course would be better paying, unless they went to become security guards in housing societies. It is quite likely that such restrictions and punitive checks on their career would dissuade others who may want a career but fear being held hostages to bonds. The elite have to be treated like elite. They cannot be asked to be troth with a job from which there is no escape. Intelligence is picked up from diverse sources, from all strata of society and the personnel need to breach the walls of several social groups, mix and mingle – toast with champagne as well as sit at a chai tapir to ferret out information that could be crucial to pre-empt terror as well as chase clues. But then, low pay, bond committing service for specified number of years and fines is hardly the way to find and retain talent. The government, otherwise, could very well go back to the flat foots as its main resource for the onerous tasks. Instead, it may make sense to offer incentives, and tell them that their jobs are as important as the sleuths like Bond, sans the blondes, of course, than a beat head constable is. The unsolved Pune blast could well be paying the price of parsimony.