The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Insurgency must be dealt with firmly’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 05, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Insurgency must be dealt with firmly’

Staff Reporter

Speakers at seminar on internal security call for national policy to tackle terrorism, naxalism

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Discussing security: (From left) FINS coordinator Indresh Kumar; former Director-General of Police, Punjab, K.P.S. Gill; Major General (retd.) M.C. Nanjappa; and State Human Rights Commission Chairman S.R. Nayak at the seminar in Bangalore on Saturday on threats to internal security.

BANGALORE: The need to deal with insurgency with an iron hand and simultaneously tackle the problems that give rise to insurgency was the common refrain of speakers at a seminar here on Saturday on “Combating the threats to the internal security of India — the role of citizens”.

While Karnataka State Human Rights Commission Chairman S.R. Nayak called for a national policy to tackle terrorism and naxalism, the former Additional Director- General of Police, Assam, Ashok Sahu said laws such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) were more relevant today. The former Director-General of Police, Punjab, K.P.S. Gill said effective counterterrorism measures by the police and the judiciary would help combat what he termed jehadi terrorism, which was still in its infancy.

Inaugurating the seminar organised by the Karnataka chapter of the Forum for Integrated National Security, Mr. Nayak said terrorism and naxalism, which was gaining ground across the country, posed a serious threat to human civilisation.

While the issues that fomented extremism needed to be socially and economically addressed, a national policy with absolutely no scope for dialogue or negotiation with extremist forces should be framed, he said.

Mr. Gill said, “We should come away from the false sense of secularism that is ruling now. Every religion has to be given a field to play.”

Mr. Sahu said he smelt an international conspiracy behind the spread of jehadi terrorism and naxalism. Unrest was being created to thwart India from becoming a global power.

The Revolutionary International Movement, which supports separatism in 42 countries, including India, was headquartered in the U.S. and had the active support of the CIA, he alleged.

Two-pronged approach

Lieutenant General Ravi Eipe (Retd.) said a relentless military operation would not help curb the threat.

Alleviation of social and economic problems and elimination of extremist forces should go on simultaneously, he added.

Congress leader Harnahalli Ramaswamy termed the naxal movement anti-democratic and said some organisations were supporting extremism in the name of human rights. What could be more incongruous than a math felicitating revolutionary balladeer Gadar with the Basava Award or the Home Minister rejecting a list of naxalites and their sympathisers prepared by his own police force, he asked.

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