Should India adopt a strategy of high-profile surgical strikes to curtail terror strikes sponsored by Pakistan?
At a session on “Terror-proofing India” at The Huddle , M.K. Narayanan, former National Security Adviser, said these strikes could not be the foremost response as India was still a few years away from developing the capability to conduct a precise operation without collateral deaths.
“India does not have the capability now to conduct an Osama [Bin Laden]-style operation against a specific target. If India could target Masood Azhar [Jaish-e-Mohammed] without killing 200 civilians in the neighbourhood, then we could consider the option ... We need to speed up the processes that allow us to do these precise strikes,” he said.
However, the former Deputy Chief of the Army Staff, Lt. Gen. (Retd) Ramesh Halgali, believed in a contrary opinion, saying that Pakistan understood only “one language” and every “bullet must be answered with another”.
He said India needed to learn from the response of the Israeli government in conducting surgical strikes within minutes of missile launches. “The surgical strikes conducted recently officially showed the international community what India is capable of — that Pakistan got what it deserved. This must be launched repeatedly ... a bullet for a bullet,” he said adding that the strikes must focus on terror launch pads across the Line of Control.
Similarly, the two panellists adopted contrary positions when it came to India’s participation in coalition forces against terrorism. While Mr. Halgali believed such participation would be a projection of the growing stature of a regional power, Mr. Narayanan disagreed.
Cyber threats
As the efficacy of conventional terrorism reduces, it is Internet-enabled terrorism that is the next biggest threat to the country.
The world will have to brace for the new era of terrorism, where recruitment, planning and execution of terror attacks are done online behind a thick veil of anonymity, Mr. Narayanan said. “The impact is shattering, and this is a frightening phase. The handlers can remain unidentified and their locales unknown,” he said.
Gulshan Rai, Cybersecurity Chief under the Prime Minister’s Office, said use of information and communication technologies for illegal activities — terrorism, espionage, hacking and disruptions — threw up challenges, particularly that of producing indigenous systems that could be used to counter cyberterrorism without the threat of external infections.
On fighting conventional terror, Hormis Tharakan, former RAW chief, stressed the need for improving coordination between bodies and focussing on education as a tool for peace. He said there needed to be a security alert system, where information of the threat perception could be shared widely with the public, along with the precautionary steps needed to be taken.
Demonetisation and terrorism
Responding to a question on the impact of demonetisation on terrorism, Mr. Rai said the increased use of digital transactions would aid in tracking the money flow to terror groups or terror suspects.
However, Mr. Tharakan pointed out that incidents of terror in the country required very little funding. They relied on cheap improvised explosive devices to spread fear. Similarly, Mr. Narayanan doubted any significant impact on the flow of counterfeit money or terror funding.
