The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Malik blames myopic leaders for terrorism

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Tuesday, Feb 05, 2008
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Karnataka

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Malik blames myopic leaders for terrorism

Special Correspondent

‘Centre should initiate hard measures while dealing with neighbours’

— PHOTO: K. Gopinathan

CRUCIAL INSIGHT: Director-General of Police of Home Guards Jija S. Harisingh (left), the former Chief of Army Staff General V.P. Malik, Adviser to the Governor P.K.H. Tharakan, Chief Secretary P.B. Mahishi and Director-General of Police K.R. Srinivasan at a seminar on ‘Terrorism disasters’ in Bangalore on Monday.

BANGALORE: The former chief of the Army Staff General, V.P. Malik, on Monday said the country had not been able to find solutions to terrorism due to “short-sightedness of the political leadership.”

Delivering the keynote address at a three-day national seminar on “Terrorism Disasters,” jointly organised by the Directorate of Home Guards and Civil Defence and International Resource Development Centre here, General Malik said solution to terrorism lies in political decisions and that the “gun cannot resolve the problems.”

The problems created by organisations such as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) have not been solved because of the lack of continuity in political decisions. Political leaders want to quickly solve the problems during their regime itself. Short-term and quick measures cannot be a remedy. The responsibility of providing correct advice and ensuring continuity lies with the bureaucrats and senior police officials, he said.

General Malik said wars had become outdated as countries were now increasingly using terrorists to destabilise other nations and cited the example of Pakistan which is carrying out a proxy war against India. “Terrorism is not an ideology but a strategy to achieve the goal through violent means,” he remarked.

The external affairs policies earlier had not thoroughly addressed the issue of infiltration. Besides the soft policies, the Government should take some hard measures while dealing with neighbouring countries, he said.

He emphasised the need for sharing of collated intelligence with all the security agencies in the country and said the same was not happening at present.

Comprehensive steps

The former Additional Cabinet Secretary and security analyst, B. Raman, said the country should have a comprehensive counter-terrorism mechanism, which must include preventive intelligence, physical security and disaster management.

In the changed security scenario, scientists, information technology and energy experts should be part of the disaster management set-up and there is no use in having an “omnibus and classical mechanism,” he said while making out a case for setting up a database of experts.

Governor Rameshwar Thakur in his address, which was read out in his absence by his advisor P.K.H. Tharakan, said concerted and coordinated international strategy and diplomacy were required to solve the problems posed by terrorism.

In the past 10 years, acts of terrorism world-over have claimed five lakh lives, affected 2.50 billion people and caused a loss of about 690 billion U.S. dollars, he said.

The Governor said the media should play a responsible role in reporting terrorism as terrorists were “exploiting the media’s impulse” to sensationalise their heinous activities.

Intelligence

Mr. Tharakan, who is a former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), emphasised the need for strengthening ground level intelligence and said the police station was the best place for it as the station house officer can anticipate, prevent and mitigate the problem.

Mr. Tharakan appreciated the work of two police constables who apprehended two youths with terrorist links in Honnali taluk of Davangere district recently. A major incident was prevented due to the alertness of the two constables, he said.

In her introductory note, Director-General of Police (Fire and Emergency Service, Home Guards and Civil Defence) Jeeja Harisingh said the economic progress made by Bangalore had made the terrorists to set their eyes on the city and, thus awareness on disaster management had to be created among the people here.

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