India seeks US help to counter terrorism

Wants response model based on 26/11 attacks

India wants the United States to share with it a special terror response model, developed by Los Angeles Police Department(LAPD) in the wake of the November 26-28, 2008 attacks in Mumbai

As the string of terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13 once again underlined security vulnerability of the metropolises, New Delhi wants renewed focus on mega-city policing in India-US counterterrorism cooperation.

Officials told Deccan Herald that New Delhi and Washington were scheduling visits by delegations of senior police officers from major cities in India to New York, Los Angeles and other cities in US in the coming months to learn more about preparedness of the local cops in dealing with multiple terror attacks launched simultaneously.

India is understood to be keen on being included in police training programmes, which the LAPD developed after studying the modus operandi of the 10 Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. The Multi-Assault Counter Terrorism Capabilities (MACTAC) was developed based on the study of the LAPD officials in Mumbai.

Over 170 people were killed and many others were injured in the three-day long attacks by the terrorists. Soon after the attacks in November 2008, the LAPD sent a team of its officials to Mumbai to meet their counterparts and study how the terrorists launched the attack and how local cops responded to it.

The MACTAC was developed on the basis of the lessons learnt in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, taking into account many possibilities, including that some members of the gang of attackers might use the first incident just to lure the policemen to a scene so that their accomplices could wreak havoc in another scene before the cops could response.
Officials said that a team of senior officers of Mumbai Police had been in New York last month.

Richard Verma, US ambassador to India, recently said that the programme had given both NYPD and Mumbai Police “the opportunity to share best practices for protecting critical infrastructure and responding to security threats”.