Anti-terror lessons from Lord Bentinck

Re: Police previously interviewed gunman, June 13.

When Lord William Bentinck arrived as Governor General of India in 1828, the country was in the grip of terror.

A religious cult of robbers, called Thugs (our word “thug” derives from them) was terrorizing the length and breadth of that vast country.

Although Thugs had no political agenda, they invoked religious fanaticism — in their case a violent form of Tantric Hinduism — to glorify their acts of terrorism and recruit new followers.

Facing terrorism on a massive scale, Lord Bentinck made suppression of Thugs his principal objective.

He created an intelligence organization, called the Central Intelligence Department (CID) and authorized its chief, Capt. Sleeman, to wipe out the Thugs. Capt. Sleeman, with the help of local agents, infiltrated the Thugs and in a series of police and military operations, rounded them up. By the time Lord Bentinck left India five years later, the Thugs were wiped out.

Islamist extremists belonging to ISIL are the thugs of our time and they can be contained by looking at the method used by Lord Bentinck and Capt. Sleeman against the Thugs. Intelligence organizations such as the CIA and the FBI can infiltrate ISIL acolytes among local populations and round up those planning murder and mayhem. However, proper care should be taken so that no innocent people are wrongly apprehended.

If Lord Bentinck could eliminate the Thugs in the 19th century without modern means of detection, we can easily do this with our 21st-century high-tech detection. Mahmood Elahi, Ottawa