At Modi's 101 rallies, the common man must be safe from terror too

Forget Narendra Modi. Forget the Gandhis or Manmohan Singh or his cabinet ministers. It is time to think of the security of the common man who will be an easy prey and a sitting duck target for terrorists as the silly season of election kicks in from Sunday, 29 September, coinciding with a worrying uptick in terror attacks all around. The VVIPs are already well taken care of and their personal as well as proximate security will be “further beefed up” (as the cliché goes) when our netas embark on their election campaign trail. It is the man on the street whose security would likely be most neglected, as has been the case always. India’s security managers owe it to the people to at least do their very best in putting in place a vibrant system of security and intelligence with latest gadgetry and technology, though it is understandable that even the only superpower in the world, the United States, too hasn’t been able to prevent terror attacks, the latest such incident occurring in Boston on 15 April. [caption id=“attachment_1132093” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The BJP’s grand plan is in public knowledge as the media has been writing about it for several days. This gives ample time for terrorist outfits to choreograph and unleash their diabolical plan. Reuters[/caption] The country’s security and intelligence apparatus will begin its test by fire from next Sunday when Modi addresses his first public rally in the national capital after his anointment as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the upcoming general elections, due in just about seven months. The trouble for Delhi Police and the security and intelligence agencies is that they need to take it as not just one rally by Modi at Japanese Park in northwest Delhi’s Rohini area but virtually 101 rallies simultaneously. That is because the BJP’s ambitious plan is to maximise the Modi effect with the aid of technology, something that has never happened before in independent India’s political history. The BJP will be installing giant LED screens at 100 public places and busy markets like Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar and Connaught Place which have witnessed terror bombings in the past. Modi’s address at Rohini will be beamed live at the other 100 locations. The BJP’s grand plan is in public knowledge as the media has been writing about it for several days. This gives ample time for terrorist outfits to choreograph and unleash their diabolical plan. They have had at least ten or twelve days of ‘preparation time’. Top international expert on terrorism Brian Jenkins had famously remarked a quarter century ago that “Terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead”. But the coming poll season in India, especially Modi’s simultaneous public address at 101 places in Delhi, promises the terrorists both the possibilities: lot of people dying and lot of people watching. This is not scare-mongering. The intention of this writer, who extensively covered terror attacks in Delhi and Punjab in mid-eighties and nineties, is to sensitise the general public and pressurise security and intelligence agencies to ensure that they leave no stone unturned in preventing terror attacks. This writer is well aware that our police and intelligence agencies have some of the best brains in the world and it goes to their credit that not a single Republic Day parade and Independence Day’s main function at Red Fort in the national capital has ever been hit by a terror attack since terrorism reared its ugly head in the country three decades ago. However, unfortunately the general public is either ignorant or casual about the do’s and don’ts in helping to prevent a terror attack. Here is a check list of some useful things for the security brass and the general public alike and Firstpost would like a vibrant public security mechanism to be in place, beginning this Sunday in Delhi. 1. Security at Japanese Park, Rohini, will presumably be tight and multi-layered, access to the venue will be controlled and regulated and all entrants will walk through door-frame metal detectors after being checked by hand-held metal detectors. Sniffer dogs will be deployed and bomb disposal squads would be kept handy. But Delhi Police will need to replicate this exercise at the 100 other venues where large crowds are expected at each venue. 2. The public at large will be more vulnerable at these 100 venues, rather than at Rohini. It remains to be seen whether Delhi Police has that kind of wherewithal to spread a security umbrella at 101 places simultaneously, but it has had ample time and can borrow resources from the Central Para-military forces or even neighbouring states. 3. CCTC cameras must be deployed at all 101 venues and these must be functional. Terror attacks in Sarojini Nagar and other places in Delhi in the past exposed this major lacuna in the security system as CCTV cameras at most places were found to be dysfunctional. 4. A strict vigil must be kept on buyers of common fertilizers like ammonium nitrate which have been the major ingredient of bomb attacks in the capital. 5. This exercise should be replicated in the case of buyers of second-hand cars, scooters and bicycles as these have routinely been used for keeping the bombs and parking these vehicles at public places. The general public needs to be alert about these booby traps and help the police. Terrorists operate with an intrinsic advantage over the security agencies: they choose their own time and venue to strike and decide their own modus operandi. In most cases, terrorists use KISS strategy – Keep It Simple, Stupid! Thus, the most favoured strategy of terrorists worldwide for decades has been assembling crude bombs and triggering these at public places crammed with people. Delhi or other Indian cities are no stranger to terrorists’ KISS strategy. Here are some thoughts of Brian Jenkins which are as useful and pertinent in the Indian and international context now as they were in 1988 when Jenkins aired these. “If we go back to the early 1970s about 80% of all international terrorist attacks were directed against property, things, and only about 20% were directed against persons. In the 1980s as terrorism has become bloodier, half the attacks are directed against people, for an obvious reason. It’s possible to protect things. We can put walls around things, we can put x-rays around things to detect the presence of weapons and so on, but people are the soft target. So as we have taken measures to increase security against terrorists, they have moved in the direction of going after the softest targets.” Delhi Police will do well to take the lead in ensuring exemplary public security this Sunday. Also, Modi too needs to be more cautious from here on and not commit the same mistake that Rajiv Gandhi did 22 years ago: not allowing police officials to do their job for the sake of mingling with the crowd. Modi should stick to the security Blue Book and allow police and security officials to do their job the way they want. The writer is a Firstpost columnist, a strategic analyst and author of “Beyond the Tigers: Tracking Rajiv Gandhi’s Assassination”. He tweets @Kishkindha.