The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Anti-terrorist cell getting into the business of surveillance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 24, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Anti-terrorist cell getting into the business of surveillance

Staff Reporter

We need technological intelligence to fight the menace: IGP

‘Boys and girls being used as couriers’
A separate Ministry is needed at the Centre, says expert

BANGALORE: The December 2005 terrorist attack on the Indian Institute of Science campus here was the “wake up” call that Karnataka is no longer a State where internal security can be taken for granted, M.K. Nagaraj, Inspector-General of Police, Anti-Terrorist Cell (ATC), said here on Tuesday.

Speaking on “Internal Security in India”, a regional conference to mark the golden jubilee of the Indian Institute of Public Administration, Dr. Nagaraj said the police had begun putting in place information-gathering strategies. There was ample information about fundamentalist groups and “Leftist-extremist” outfits operating in the State.

The new policies and strategy adopted by the police and investigative agencies were geared to meet the new challenges, Dr. Nagaraj said.

There was no “clear and categorical” policy laid down to proactively predict and prevent terrorist attacks by “underground” soldiers.

On the hazards the police now have to face while fighting terrorist activities, Dr. Nagaraj said: “We need more than human intelligence, we need technological intelligence too, to fight cyber crime, and face up to the prospect of militant elements with foreign funding being able to access the numerous Defence establishments and high-security zones.” Voice Over Internet Protocol crimes, and young boys and girls being used as couriers were some of the “new-age” crimes that the police need to be prepared to fight, he said.

V. Uberoy, chief executive officer, Institute for Organisation Development, who has worked on several missions in the North-East, Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir, said the task of fighting internal terrorism would be much easier if the country learnt to differentiate between “internal threat and internal security”.

A separate Ministry to address the problem of internal threat, from militant attacks on public places, and even domestic violence which spring from confrontation between different ideological movements would go a long way in pre-empting such incidents, Maj. Gen. Uberoy said.

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