|
COVER STORY: VULNERABLE INDIA
A Wake-Up Call
It's the US today, it could be India next. Given
the present security arrangements, can we afford to be complacent?
By Sayantan Chakravarty
|
|
|
|
|
TAKING
STOCK: Security has been beefed up at the US Embassy in Delhi
|
Alert is a word
that was on every securityman's lips in the capital last week. The word
came accompanied with panic which, following the "Osama Madness",
gripped the mandarins of the Union Home Ministry and intelligence agencies.
The question that no one could give a clear answer to was: if the myth
about American security and intelligence could be shattered so easily
in New York and Washington, what chance do Mumbai and Delhi-the country's
financial and administrative capitals-have to save their edifices of wealth
and power? The round-the-clock images of fireballs and gigantic columns
of dark smoke, of the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) collapsing,
of helpless people flinging themselves from the 110-storey-high buildings
ensured that the question was not forgotten in a hurry.
Last week, in confabulations between top Home
Ministry officials and those in charge of external and internal intelligence,
the matter that occupied minds was: after America, is India next? Prepared
for the worst, yet unwilling to admit limitations in countering aerial
strikes and suicide bombers, officials tried to project that not all was
bad. Says R.S. Gupta, Delhi Police special commissioner in charge of security
and operations: "Adequate preparations have been made in a professional
manner to meet all eventualities."
Gupta wouldn't talk of aerial security cover
for Delhi's most sensitive buildings like the South and North Blocks that
house the Prime Minister's Office and the Home Ministry or the US Embassy
where Afghanistan-trained, Pakistan-sponsored terrorists tried to strike
in the past four months. "You cannot say that just because the US
witnessed an aerial attack, the same could happen in Delhi. The threat
perceptions are different," he said.
But given the security apparatus in Delhi, Gupta's
words do not inspire confidence. For one, what was actually in the realms
of fiction became a reality in what were considered the world's most secure
cities. "After this kind of attack, anything is possible and the
terrorists will stop at nothing," warns Nikhil Kumar, former special
secretary in the Union Home Ministry and till recently the Government's
head of internal security.
In Mumbai, the sensitive Bhabha Atomic Research
Centre and the Western Naval Command, headquarters of the country's premier
nuclear and naval operational bases, are prime targets. As could be the
Bombay Stock Exchange and the busy Mumbai airport. The local municipality
has a disaster management plan in place, but whether it is geared to cope
with an aerial or nuclear attack is another matter altogether.
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives
