Prime Minister Modi has viewed with concern the failure to act on specific intelligence input about a possible attack on the Pathankot airbase and appalled at the lack of coordination between various government agencies during the attack.

According to one media report Prime Minister Narendra Modi, following the terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase, is considering a proposal to create a separate department or ministry of internal security on the lines of the Homeland Security apparatus in the United States. Though the report does not cite any government source, the mention of ‘department or ministry’ is intriguing because if only a department, it would possibly be within Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) but under overall control of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), as was the case during the tenures of Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao as Prime Ministers.

As per the report Prime Minister Modi has viewed with concern the failure to act on specific intelligence input about a possible attack on the Pathankot airbase and appalled at the lack of coordination between various government agencies during the attack. The announcement of the new structure for dealing with internal security is likely to be made very shortly. It is noteworthy though while during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure P. Chidambaram was Minister for Internal Security, latter as Home Minister during UPA-II while projecting the case for National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) had also recommended setting up a separate Ministry of Internal Security. The mere fact that such recommendation was made by the Home Minister himself who had also headed the Department of Internal Security earlier indicated: one, that the MHA with its vast responsibilities could not adequately counter the growing threats to homeland security, and; two, a Department for Internal Security may not be adequate.

The idea of the Ministry of Internal Security was shelved at that time because it was felt it would give too much power to whoever was the Minister of Internal Security – the euphuism ‘too much power’ being on the same analogy as not appointing a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and keeping the military out of higher defence organisations including the Ministry of Defence (MoD) because of fears of the proverbial ‘army coup’. The NCTC which was required decades back was nipped in the bud due to the fear of its misuse by the Centre. That is why we are neither a ‘hard power’ nor a ‘soft power’ and despite being subjected to proxy wars over three decades, have done little to establish credible deterrence against irregular forces, even as both China and Pakistan have upped the ante.

Chinese intelligence has put together nine north-eastern insurgent organisations under the United National Liberation Front of West, South, East Asia to keep our Northeast on the boil, aside from supporting and arming PLA of Manipur and the Maoists. The Pakistani proxy war narrative has been given fresh fillip with even foreign analysts acknowledging that Jaish-e-Mohammed has been revived by the Pakistani military. Hafiz Saeed who has a $10 million US bounty on his head, roams freely. Pakistan’s ISI is notorious for its links with some 14 major terrorist organisations. It has always had firm links directly with Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda’s offshoot Haqqanis. Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, one of the main 26/11 perpetrators, continues to be treated as royalty by the Pakistani administration by accounts in Pakistani media. That Pakistan continues to protect Dawood Ibrahim wanted by India is another issue. Pakistani national Mullah Asim Umar, head of AQIS, is also sheltered in Pakistan. Can we forget Musharraf rewarding Ilyas Kashmiri with Rs. 1 lakh for cross-border beheading?

Whatever be the shape of the new organisation for looking after internal security, it needs to come up speedily. Establishment of the NCTC needs to be speeded up concurrent to combining intelligence agencies like National Investigation Agency (NIA), Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Aviation Research Centre (ARC), National Crime Record Bureau and the likes.

Currently, the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) has started functioning but its efficiency needs to be optimised by expanding it into the NCTC. Further, since irregular threats are borderless, defence intelligence too must be coopted into the NCTC/MAC. UHQs need to be established in all affected states – chaired by the Chief Ministers, with senior representatives of military (where applicable), CAPF, police, intelligence agencies, representatives of services intelligence, military advisor, ministers/representatives of public works, education, health, agriculture, irrigation, forests, mines, etc. Similar smaller UHQs should be replicated at district level. There is a need to evolve comprehensive Intelligence Acquisition Plans as also create State level State Counter Terrorism Centre (SCTC) under UHQ, linked to NCTC through the NATGRID. While planning resources, the importance of human intelligence (HUMINT) should not be lost; it is the best resource in CI and CT environment. Bottom-up intelligence should come through the SCTC to ensure a cohesive picture and negate one-upmanship.

The closure of Army’s Technical Support Division (TSD) has been a major mistake, adverse effects of which are indicative from the narcotics mafia facilitating terrorist infiltration. NCTC and SCTCs require capacity building for automated intelligence collection (voice, data, video), automated analysis with an automated decision support system to undertake short, medium, long-term assessments and automated dissemination of real-time intelligence and common operational picture to concerned entities on need to know basis. Needless to reiterate that the new set up would need a functional operations room manned 24 x 7 by professionals.