TERROR AND POLICE REFORMS

The terrorist strike in Mumbai was a grim reminder of the failure of our rulers to learn from their past mistakes. In 1993, consignments of arms and explosives used in the serial blasts in Bombay were smuggled from Pakistan by the coastal route due to the negligence or connivance of the central and state agencies responsible for surveillance and security. The operation, designed to exacerbate the communal tensions in the country and deal a body blow to its economy, was carried out by a local mafia ring acting under the directions of its patrons in Pakistan. This experience should have led to a revamp of the apparatus for coastal surveillance and inland security. But this did not happen.

Since October 2000, there had been repeated terrorist attacks on high visibility targets such as J & K State Legislative Assembly, Delhi Red Fort, Parliament, American Cultural Centre at Kolkata, Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, Indian Institute of Science and various establishments of the security forces, underscoring the ineptitude and the insularity of the multiple agencies responsible for intelligence, security and emergency response. The cumulative experience of these outrages should have culminated in the setting up of a unified command structure for counterterrorism on the lines of the U. S. Department of Homeland Security established in the wake of 9/ 11. But this did not happen and the agencies concerned and their overlords went about their business as usual, fighting their turf wars and neglecting the imperatives of their core functions.

No wonder that in November 2008, a band of ten heavily armed urban guerrillas from Pakistan could traverse the distance from Karachi to Mumbai in a captured Indian fishing boat, sneak unchallenged into the heart of Mumbai’s commercial district, take over four carefully chosen high visibility targets, inflict enormous casualties on Indian citizens and foreigners and hold out for sixty agonising hours against the combined might of the National Security Guard, the Army, the Navy and the police, virtually decapitating in the process Maharashtra’s celebrated Anti- Terrorism Squad. The Mumbai Police, untrained and ill-equipped, had to bear the brunt of the initial onslaught and proved unequal to the task, individual acts of exceptional bravery notwithstanding.

The fact is that because of its status as India’s leading metropolis and its financial and commercial capital, Mumbai had been in the cross-hairs of the terrorists since 1993. There had been a sharp rise in the terrorist activity in Mumbai since 2002 as evidenced by a succession of

diabolical blasts in crowded places and public transports, culminating in the serial explosions in commuter trains and stations in July 2006. Other metros and communally sensitive spots in the country have also been targeted in the same fashion.

Although the case for police reforms is not founded solely on the need to combat terrorism, the exacerbation of terrorist violence and the resultant threat to the country’s internal security should have spurred the Union and state governments to restructure their police forces, to modernise them in terms of resource base, expertise level and adoption of new technologies of crime detection and prevention and to institute arrangements for inter-agency coordination, intelligence gathering and information sharing, so that the police forces could outwit the new age terror-organized crime nexus. The verdict of the Supreme Court in Prakash Singh (September 2006) provided an opportunity for addressing the basic problems afflicting the police in the country. The Apex Court issued comprehensive, time-bound directions to the Union and state governments with a view to addressing the patent infirmities of policing and transforming the police from an instrument at the service of the rulers into a professional, responsive and accountable force at the service of the rule of law. These directions represented the essence of the prescriptions of various Police Commissions and other expert bodies appointed from time to time to examine the state of policing in India. And yet, the Union of India and most of the state governments, including the government of Maharashtra, have resorted to every possible ruse to avoid the implementation of the letter and spirit of the Supreme Court directions. The aversion to police reforms is a trait common to governments of widely different political persuasions and affiliations.

It has to be recognised that the present rot in the police is not due to a process of natural decay; politicians across the political spectrum have deliberately allowed policing to deteriorate to such an extent that the common man is bereft of the sense of security and the protection of law. A demoralised and compromised police that is brazenly used to further partisan and personal objectives is in no position to provide protection to the citizens. But the spontaneous outpouring of public anger and outrage in the aftermath of the tragic events of November 26 has demonstrated that the people of India will no longer tolerate any chicanery over police reforms. The Prime Minister was conscious of the popular sentiment when he referred in his address to the nation on November 27 to the urgency of police reforms in the context of the threats to national integrity.

The people of India demand that illegitimate interference in all aspects of policing should cease forthwith. The police must become a truly independent public service. The abysmal conditions of service of the constabulary and its unmet professional needs should be addressed expeditiously. Institutional arrangements to ensure accountability for the core functions of policing and to sanction wrongdoing, bias and corruption ought to be put in place, as enjoined by the Supreme Court. It is time that the political parties seeking a popular mandate in the forthcoming elections to the Lok Sabha took note of this new ground reality. They will be well advised to declare their commitment to police reforms and undertake to ensure the implementation of the directions of the Supreme Court, rising above narrow political considerations.

- Kamal Kant Jaswal