Despite Home Minister P. Chidambaram's insistence that Wednesday's serial bomb blasts in Mumbai could not be blamed on any intelligence failure, experts said India's internal security apparatus remained woefully inadequate.
The three explosions in the country's commercial capital left 17 dead and 131 injured, dozens of them seriously.
Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute of Conflict Management in New Delhi, said new security measures introduced after the 2008 Mumbai attacks had only addressed "a fraction" of the core weaknesses in policing and grassroots information gathering.
"Obviously, you cannot have a 100 percent guarantee against a terror attack, but that said, we have tremendous infirmities in terms of security," Sahni told AFP.
"Our system does not respond on a war footing to terrorism, it acts like a confused bureaucracy," he said, adding that India's police force was largely "incompetent" with little or no forensic capability or intelligence training.
Citing the absence of an effective national crime and terror database, Sahni said successive governments had visibly failed to learn the lessons of the past.
"We have been fighting insurgencies for decades now, and we only introduced a course on counter-terrorism for the police in 2010," he said.
Chidambaram, the minister responsible for India's internal security, had sought to pre-empt such criticism at a press briefing Thursday after visiting the blast sites.
"There was no intelligence failure," Chidambaram argued, highlighting the near-impossibility of preventing what might have been a "very small group" using crude, improvised explosives in a busy area.
The minister, appointed in 2008 to drive the modernisation of the ministry, also revealed that Mumbai police had foiled "a large number" of planned attacks since the 2008 assault that left 166 dead, although he declined to give any details.
Chidambaram was the driving force behind the creation of a National Investigation Agency, intended as a forum to share intelligence on threats from across the country.
Wilson John, a security expert at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, said the government was ceding too much ground to militant groups.
"We can't rest on the idea that it's difficult to prevent attacks on soft targets, areas where many people congregate," John told AFP.
Pointing to counter-terror policies in countries like Britain and the United States, he said other countries had shown that increased surveillance and a properly trained police force could foil such incidents.
"As a state... we have become too used to terrorism, too tolerant," he said.
"We haven't invested enough in our men on the ground to gather intelligence. If you don't have intelligence, then you are going to see more attacks like this.
"Money is certainly an issue, India cannot afford to spend like the US or the UK but we need to understand how to spend our money better," he said.
The 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which 10 militants laid siege to multiple targets in the city for nearly three days, cruelly exposed the frailties of an under-trained, under-equipped police force.
Praveen Swami, associate editor at the Hindu newspaper and author of a book on covert militant activity in India, said many of the post-2008 security efforts had been well-intentioned but either misdirected or not followed through.
"After the Mumbai attacks, Maharashtra set up a police training academy, but they have no cadre of trainers, no instructors," Swami said.
Officers had been sent on counter-terror courses in Britain and the United States, Swami said. "But once they are back, they are not told to teach anyone else. There is no institutionalised effort to disperse the knowledge."
He also criticised a focus on acquiring sophisticated weaponry for new rapid action forces set up in the past two years.
"Obviously you are not going to get a first-world police force on a third-world budget," Swami said.
"But India needs to realise that the acquisition of gadgets is not going to compensate for an ill-trained, semi-educated police force."
COMMENTS (8)
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@ ET none of my comments are appearing (pls dont post thing one assuming itll make up for those u dont post)... pls let me know if its an ET policy to only post rude comments (as it appears only the 'spicy' ones make it) and i shall ensure i only write rude comments.. so that neither my nor ur time is wasted!
i ahve to say im VERY impressed by the commnets left behind by indians on various such articles.. they ahve shown great maturity... they ahvnt blamed pakistan for anythign or muslims etc etc..
i personally think in a situation like this you need to step back and look at things more logically.. lets say the militants are of afghan, US or Pakitani origins....... the indian intelligence still should have known or had a hunch about such an attack.. if these millitnats crossed h border and came they should ahve had some clue... now being realistic one should also keep in mind security lapses happen EVERYWHERE!! nothing is full proof ... 9/11.. the mumbai attacks.. the abbotabad operations are all examples that remind us of the same...
the only thing i believe that needs to be done is sharing of intelligence b/w pakistan, india and the US (considering they ahve all those surveilance drones)........ if pakistan and india can put their differences aside.. forget the past and focus on the future im sure both countries can completely irridicate terrorism form t he region.
There has been no incidnce of terrorist attack in US after 9/11. Britain is also free from such menace after the London bombings. People in India question the Government's sincerity in tackling anti-national activities which are continuing unabatedly since two decades.
With the help from their masters, the local modules can carry on with such activities without any great difficulty. Reasons are well known. The judicial system in third world is either inaffective or guided by greed. Governments are dishonest in application of effective measures and politicians are generally considered as a corrupt lot. Majority is discontent and minority is alienated. Policing is devided on sectarian and religious grounds. Sane voices are not heard and hatred is the main plank of settling scores amongs the power mongers.
But democracy is still and will always remain the best bet for curing violent atmosphere in any region. See Punjab. Afer 25 years of insurgency, it is once again the land of peace and prosperity and helping for national cause. Assam is on the same way of peace when insurgents have understood the faultlines and ageed to talk with the Government. But for long lasting peace, democracy must ensure speedy justice and equi-distibution of national wealth among the general masses without discrimination. In order to instill confidence in psyche of minority, the national judicial systems, bureaucracy and political practices must refrain from biased notions. A confient minority will produce best citizenry and will finally pave the way of robust vigilance structure which will ultimately be the main cause for uprooting the terrorists' networks.
With a sizable minority population, Indian polity, and even other nations for that matter, must initiate good governance without any discrimination. Culprits to be punished without hasitation and innocents to be taken care of. When minority populace is involved in nation building, national vigilance system will then automatically start functioning properly without much failures. India has done quite a lot for its masses on the basis of secularism but half measures need to be corrected soon to derive best results.
Poor intelligence ----- my foot , Worst intelligence anyone anytime can do anything.
Pakistan need not enter India there are enough people to stabotage India.
Indian public needs to wake up and serve notice to political parties that they want fast action on anti-terrorism measures including investments in the latest equipment and training for anti-terrorism personnel. But Indian politicians are sleeping. Those like Chidambaram should be fired because they are only interested in hanging on to power providing lame excuses. They don't take responsibility for policy failure. As a first step, political heads would have rolled here in the US. Indian politicians should own up for mistakes and negligence. They should show some moral courage and ethics and not hang on to power to line their pockets.
...If the title fits...the mighty $$$, in other instances "Henry the Vlll divorced his wife" the news looks ok,...in fact he had her head chopped off!!!
it could be done by CIA who want to make tensions between indian n pakistan and solve their issues by their own wishes.