JOIN USA terrorist wants high publicity, maximum impact by choosing an icon like Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai or a police headquarters to gain quick fame. He, therefore, sets a bomb where he can attract maximum TV coverage; a few might even look for a site under the very nose of the police station, in a gesture of defiance. A hard core terrorist would like to create discord among people, like communal tension, hoping that would create a rift in the society.
Many of the earlier blasts in Hyderabad occurred either on Thursday or Friday, aimed at fomenting largescale communal tension. A terrorist hopes that there is also a regional issue, like targeting people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in Mumbai, and coastal Andhra Pradesh people in Telangana.
They also look for political instability, politics in a flux. Some sort of free for all lawlessness to execute an attack. All these traits fit Hyderabad, making it a soft target. Hyderabad is also the fourth largest city by population, in India. Moreover, counter-terrorism apparatus set up in New Delhi and Mumbai are far better as they have been dealing with terrorism for a long time. Hyderabad and Bangalore are second in line and might have to strengthen the mechanism.
Thanks to the Telangana statehood movement, there is a lot of hatred among different sections of the people. Even the political dialogue has gone awry on either side. The recent rabid statement by MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi has alienated the people of the old city. Terrorist outfits are watching and would like to take benefit of it. In Dilsukhnagar area, the site of the recent twin blasts, there are lots of Andhra settlers and incidents like this could provoke regional passions.
There is also rapid expansion of the city. In 2007, the city was expanded with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Commission bringing more border areas under its purview. Because of this, there is an influx from North-East, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Nepal, Bangladesh and Kashmir. The city provides anonymity to perpetrators. Real-estate also caused rapid expansion. Ten years ago, Tarnaka was a village, but today it’s a prime area. But, police services has not expanded at the same pace.
Hyderabad got two police commissionerates with the addition of Cyberabad. In 1981, there were four zones in the twin cities but now there are five zones. Except creating the commIssionerate and adding another zone, I doubt whether the policing in real terms increased. I don’t think that the AP police have really sat down and evaluated the requirement for an effective counter-terrorism mechanism. I did not find an iota of information on the AP police website.
“The AP government wanted an organisation effective enough to pre-empt terrorist moves. But the Organization for Counter Terrorist Operations (OCTOPUS), meant to tackle terrorism, is a mere commando unit that reacts only after an incident takes place.
Lots of funds are pumped in but the police is ill-equipment. I think the governments should appoint a committee to evaluate AP police’s capability to tackle the increasing threat perception, so that another Dilsukhnagar can be avoided. Afterall, even food security comes after life security. Life should get top priority.
There is a link between terrorism and hunger. Poor become easy targets. There are 14,900 slums in the city and 22 per cent of Hyderabad’s population live in these slums. I am not saying slum dwellers are terrorists, but 70 per cent of them are Below Poverty Line and become easy prey for terror recruiters.
Police-people contact
The AP police was napping in respect of the recent strike. No home ministry alert can be taken lightly. In this particular incident, there was no need for the AP state government to be cautioned by any one else as even a child would have known that terror handlers would look for a target after the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
Even if a plot is hatched somewhere else, the local sleeper cells execute the plan. Hence, Intelligence is not a one-day affair; it is an ongoing thing, round the clock.
Moreover, people have lost faith in the police force. If the police had won the confidence and sympathy of the people from different communities, especially in the walled city, information might have leaked helping the police narrow down the search area after the union home department alert.
If departments like legal metrology work well, the illegal sale of Ammonium Nitrate might have come to the fore. There is need for community policing to restore people’s confidence. Why don’t the police help people by getting the faulty street lights repaired? It helps solve crime and brings the people and the police together. One doesn’t have to infiltrate into terrorist outfits to outwit them. All one has to do is to get close to the common man.
It is important to remind the rulers that it was the regular street level policemen in Mumbai that arrested Kasab.
But the man with the lathi must be trained to suspect and react if one wants to win the war against the terrorists. But it would require the Chief Minister of the state and the chief of the police to speed up modernisation of the police force to tackle terrorism in urban conglomerates. Otherwise, we will be sitting ducks for yet another attack on Hyderabad.
(As told to J B S Umanadh)
(K Padmanabhaiah is former Union Home Secretary.)
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