Don't rely on luck: Experts say Peshawar, Sydney attacks a warning to India

New Delhi: The two recent incidents of terror — the Sydney hostage crisis on Monday followed by the massacre of school children in Peshawar on Tuesday - may be unrelated incidents, but security experts feel these should be a wake-up call for India. Terrorists have started focussing on soft targets instead of high profile ones and there’s the new threat of the lone-wolf operator, who can work with a lot of flexibility and spring nasty surprises. In the wake of the Peshawar attack, the Indian government has issued an advisory to beef up security in schools, colleges and public places like markets, railway stations, bus stands etc across the country. Indian intelligence agencies have received inputs on possible terror attack plans on Delhi hotels and on Delhi-Agra highway. The advisory, the experts feel, should be backed up by robust on the ground action. The gravity of the situation becomes more serious after Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief and Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed blaming India for the massacre of children. [caption id=“attachment_501424” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representative image. AP[/caption] “India stands in a very vulnerable position. Terror groups don’t work on any logic or rationale. Their only aim is to kill and create as much impact as possible. In the sub-continent, India is potential target due to its open, secular and democratic structure. As a result, there’s a huge threat to this widespread target,” says former chief of R&AW, CD Sahay. “Though Sydney hostage crisis and the massacre in Peshawar are two different cases, either of those incidents could take place anywhere. The political masters need to understand that if we talk about Islamic terrorism, it’s not about any religion; but the ideology the terror outfits follow. So, no politics should be played on this issue, like labeling SIMI as a peaceful outfit,” says defence analyst Maj Gen (retd) Dhruv C Katoch. In March 2009, former Pak skipper Imran Khan had said before a Pakistan-Sri Lanka Test match that cricket was so sacrosanct and religious to Pakistanis that even Taliban won’t attack it; which proved wrong. “Militants unleashed a terror attack on a convoy carrying Sri Lankan cricketers, which injured six and killed eight, and now another implausible target has been attacked in Peshawar. So, anything is possible in Pakistan. Though the attack on the army school in Peshwar by Taliban was an act of revenge against the alleged atrocities of Pakistan army on the tribal of North Waziristan, the Indian sub-continent is under a serious terror threat from various terror groups,” said a Lahore-based journalist on condition of anonymity to Firstpost. Observes counter-terrorism analyst Anil Kamboj: “In India, we’ve more soft targets than elsewhere and it can happen anywhere. We’ve seen it in the past – Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Bodh Gaya, Hyderabad and Varanasi.” The counter-terrorism experts are of the opinion that lone wolf types are no less dangerous than organized terror attacks. Even, if they are not backed by any outfit, it’s the fundamentalist ideology and fanaticism that drives their point home. “Bengaluru’s Mehdi Biswas is also a loner, and lone wolves are good enough to create havoc, especially, if they are suicide bombers,” remarks former director general, Border Security Force, Prakash Singh. Adds Katoch, “Such an attack doesn’t need any planning, and due to its uncertainty and randomness, it becomes more difficult to prevent and tackle.” But, the big question is if India is prepared to deal with such a situation? What do we lack and what needs to be done to secure our soft areas, which could be potential terror targets? “There’s a lot to be done on the intelligence front. It was a British channel, and not our cyber intelligence unit that exposed Mehdi Biswas operating the Twitter handle of the IS. Though our land borders are well guarded, our coasts continue to be vulnerable. There’s lack of coordination between agencies. Instead of being proactive and coming up with something new, we only react to situations and incidences,” adds Kamboj. Says Prakash Singh, who had tweeted – “Wake up India, u r vulnerable”– just a fortnight before the recent Maoist attack in Sukma (Bastar): “The present government under Narendra Modi’s leadership has done a lot on foreign affairs and building relationships with other nations within a short period. But, on the internal security front nothing worthwhile has been done yet. Mere cosmetic changes won’t help in police reforms. We’re surviving on sheer luck, till there’s no attack.” The growing terror threats and incidences have also posed a tough challenge to India’s intelligence agencies. Suggests Sahay: “Indian intelligence has neutralized many possible terror instances and is professionally capable of doing so. But, the state intelligence units have to play a more proactive and greater role at ground level, since terror groups don’t follow state boundaries. All agencies must act in close coordination and small leads and signals can’t be ignored, even if we later find them of no use. Who knows what may lead us to a vital plot.” “We shouldn’t panic over possibilities, but remain alert against lone wolves and cross-border infiltration through land, water and air,” advises Katoch.