Defending Indian Identity -The Challenge of Terror

In the Land from where beautiful thoughts have blossomed, the people have now become increasingly vulnerable to Terror Attacks and a countless number of innocent lives have already perished because of evil forces which desire to wipe out our Identity as a people. While we commit ourselves to promote peace and goodwill and work for the well- being of all people, there is no escape from the challenge that we face today. As a community and as a nation, we have no alternative other than preparing ourselves to this threat that is showing its ugly face without prior notice or warning.

A STRATEGY TO FACE THE SECURITY CHALLENGES OF TERRORISM

Terror and ruthless violence have become the tools of fanatics who would like to impose their socio-cultural agenda to bring about large scale societal changes by using coercion and not negotiation. The recent bomb attacks in the city of Hyderabad on August 25, 2007 is establishing a trend. The targets of terror are very soft and nothing was known about an impending attack. There is no easily identifiable group. There is no proclaimed goal or agenda other than that of destroying the fabric of the Indian society. We should stop clinging to the traditional views of conventional wars between countries. Each incident of terror attack should be legally defined as an act of war and the suspects should be held accountable for war crimes. The Armed Forces of the country should be equipped, prepared and redeployed to join this battle at a short notice.The military planners need to evolve a strategy for urban warfare and to pursue an enemy hiding in densely populated areas and to engage enemy targets with great precision and fire power which could be delivered with greater accuracy. The military intelligence capabilities should be enhanced to evolve military operations against internal enemies. We may need trained, rapid response teams to respond to this kind of aggression and its aftermath of wounded victims. The asymmetrical war unleashed by the terror groups is of equal importance in terms of the danger it poses to our national sovereignty. The response to each attack should come from the nation as a whole with the Armed Forces keeping the option of a military strike in retaliation.

The most important task following a terror attack would be that of caring for the victims. The Army Response Teams should be called in to arrange for the evacuation and treatment of the victims in the same manner that casualties from a battle field are taken care of. The wounded should be treated, rehabilitated and be provided followup care and paid a disability pension if required. We need to take care of victims instead of forgetting about them after paying some compensation. The investigation of the incidents and the prosecution of suspects should happen under the jurisdictional directions from the military authority.There should be no public disclosures about the evidence and the tools and methods used for collection of evidence. Such disclosures would only help the terror groups to plan their future attacks better. The suspects should be tried under the provisions of the military law in military courts. Indian citizens who are accomplices to these acts of war should be charged with treason and tried as traitors. If we are at war with groups and terror outfits based in foreign countries, our trade and diplomatic relationships should reflect the state of war that exists and there should be no normalization of relationships till such time the threat is neutralized.

Our government has an obligation to protect and defend the rights of the people and we need to step up our response to these acts of war of aggression.