Wagah border blast a wake-up call for India
TFOR PAKISTAN, IT IS A REGULAR HAPPENING AND LARGE NUMBER OF INNOCENT PEOPLE HAVE GOT KILLED THERE. HUMAN BOMB IS THE MOST LETHAL THREAT.
he final batch of American troops are slated to leave Afghanistan by December-end. Already, Pakistan-based terror has started reaching Indian borders, as was predicted a long time back. This is happening much earlier than expected. The teenage Pakistani human bomb who blew himself up just after the beating the retreat ceremony on the Pakistani side of the Wagah border on November 2 is a grim reminder of things to come for us. It is a wake-up call for India to revamp its internal security and counter terror setup at the earliest.
The bombers had links with Jundullah, a Pakistan- based jehadi organisation owing allegiance to Al-Qaeda. The site of the blast was just 500 metres from the place where the regular beating of the retreat ceremony was taking place on the Wagah border between Indian BSF and Pakistani Rangers who man the international border in the respective countries.
Sixty Pakistanis, including three rangers, were killed in t he blast and almost 200 Pakistanis, all civilians who had come to see this ceremony, were wounded.
Jundullah said this was to take revenge on the Pakistani army for its Operation Zarb-iAzb launched against Jehadis in North Waziristan in June this year.
Another claimant for this blast is the Tehrik-e-Pakistan -Taliban-Jammat-ul-Ahrar (TPP-JA) which had broken away from the TPP some time back and owes its allegiance to the ISIS which has recently established a Caliphate in a large swathe of Syria and Iraq.
Currently, there is a keen competition going on for domination between the ISIS and the Al- Qaeda in the Muslim world. Both t hese j ehadi organisations do not see eye to eye. The ISIS does not have much of a presence in South Asia but Al-Qaeda is deeply entrenched here.
Pakistan is propagating a hypothesis that this bomber actually wanted to blow himself up right on the Wagah border so that people on both sides got killed.
They claim he did not succeed because the Pakistani security was alert. This theory has been junked by the TPP-JA spokesman Ehsanullah, who says this bomber had only Pakistanis as his target.
He, however, warned that India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be the next target.
From the Indian point of view, it does not matter which jehadi organisation implemented this ghastly incident. We have no option but to take this threat seriously. Till now, we in India have not faced a human bomb threat from the Pakistan-based jehadis.
For Pakistan, it is a regular happening and large number of innocent people have got killed there. Human bomb is the most lethal threat in a terror environment.
Till date, there is no defence against this type of threat. Besides, the Indian police responsible for maintaining law and order in the country is neither trained nor equipped to meet this type of threat. After repeal of the anti-terror law POTA by the UPA under political considerations, we do not even have a terror-specific strong law in the country. In other words, we, ostrich-like, are ill prepared to deal with this Pakistan-based jehadi threat.
However, things are fast changing and now the human bomb threat is right next door. If we still do not wake up, this is going to cost us dear, especially in terms of the loss of human lives.
India can no more sit idle. First, there is an urgent need now for all political parties to come together and amend the constitution so that all terror cases come under the concurrent list of both the centre and the states.
The NIA must be strengthened and expanded to automatically take over any terror related case in the country. All police stations in India must be linked in the NAT Grid and Counter Terror Centre must come up in New Delhi. Indian intelligence agency RAW must be re structured on the lines of MOSSAD of Israel or the CIA of USA having powers to take counter-terror actions outside of Indian shores. The state governments must implement police reforms as ordered by the Supreme Court in 2006. Our costal security must be strengthened and we must have a terror specific-law like POTA with proper checks and balances. There are no short cuts available and time is fast running out. (VIEWS OF THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL.)