02-12-2008, 08:29 AM
<b>Indiaâs stalled intelligence war</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Late last month, when police in Karnataka arrested Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami operative Riyazuddin Nasir on vehicle theft charges, <b>they had no way of knowing the Andhra Pradesh resident was in fact among Indiaâs most wanted terrorists.</b>
If it hadnât been for a series of fortunate breaks â including a chance encounter between files relating to the Karnataka arrest and a New Delhi-based intelligence official familiar with the case â Nasir might well have slipped unnoticed through the black holes in Indiaâs counter-terrorism information system.
<b>Nasirâs near-escape illustrates, as nothing else could, just how little has been done to give Indiaâs police and intelligence services the tools they need to take on increasingly sophisticated adversaries.</b> Even as investigators struggle to cope with terrorists with transnational resources and reach, bureaucratic wrangling has sabotaged the creation of an institution experts believe is essential to the effort.
Despite calls from the Prime Ministerâs Office, the Cabinet Committee on Security, and the Union Home Ministry, the Union Finance Ministry has refused to clear the hiring of the estimated 140 personnel needed to staff a new organisation intended to coordinate the counter-terrorism work of Indiaâs external, domestic and military intelligence services. <b>In effect, Indiaâs effort to modernise its counter-terrorism operations has been choked at birth</b>.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Late last month, when police in Karnataka arrested Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami operative Riyazuddin Nasir on vehicle theft charges, <b>they had no way of knowing the Andhra Pradesh resident was in fact among Indiaâs most wanted terrorists.</b>
If it hadnât been for a series of fortunate breaks â including a chance encounter between files relating to the Karnataka arrest and a New Delhi-based intelligence official familiar with the case â Nasir might well have slipped unnoticed through the black holes in Indiaâs counter-terrorism information system.
<b>Nasirâs near-escape illustrates, as nothing else could, just how little has been done to give Indiaâs police and intelligence services the tools they need to take on increasingly sophisticated adversaries.</b> Even as investigators struggle to cope with terrorists with transnational resources and reach, bureaucratic wrangling has sabotaged the creation of an institution experts believe is essential to the effort.
Despite calls from the Prime Ministerâs Office, the Cabinet Committee on Security, and the Union Home Ministry, the Union Finance Ministry has refused to clear the hiring of the estimated 140 personnel needed to staff a new organisation intended to coordinate the counter-terrorism work of Indiaâs external, domestic and military intelligence services. <b>In effect, Indiaâs effort to modernise its counter-terrorism operations has been choked at birth</b>.
...
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