Terrorists have been targeting security agencies for a long time in Jammu and Kashmir but now, for the first time, they have struck outside the country’s northernmost state. The New Year’s terrorist attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Rampur town of Uttar Pradesh, therefore, represents a very ominous dimension of the spread of terrorist menace in the country. The government and intelligence agencies have, as usual, quickly speculated about the involvement of one or the other of the several terrorist outfits which are widely considered to be active not only in Jammu and Kashmir but also elsewhere in the country. However, the fact is that they have not been able to take preventive steps, let alone stamp out terrorism. That is hardly reassuring to the general public who in the past have been victims of terror strikes, be in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore or other smaller towns in UP and elsewhere.

If what the Army and intelligence agencies are now claiming is indeed true, then the CRPF authorities are guilty of ignoring warning messages conveyed to them in the recent past about the possibilities of terrorists’ targeting their bases, including the one in Rampur. Even if one were to dismiss these claims, the CRPF authorities should still have learnt appropriate lessons from past attacks on their camps by terrorists in Kashmir valley and Naxalites in Naxalism-hit states like Chhattisgarh. From the initial reports coming from Rampur, it is evident that the CRPF authorities and the state police were lax. They were literally caught napping as unidentified terrorists not only breached their security cordon but also carried out indiscriminate firing, killing at least eight persons before safely disappearing from the scene under the cover of darkness.

At the risk of repeating what has been said many times earlier, one must emphasise the central point all over again: the country will remain susceptible to more and more such attacks unless the governments at the Centre and in the states become more sensitive to and serious about the task of countering the menace. It is as much about modernising the intelligence and security agencies as about sensitising them. There is no point in equipping the forces with all modern weapons and electronic gadgets if the personnel using them lack mental alertness. The Rampur tragedy is yet another wake-up call, if that is at all needed any longer.