The government on Wednesday said adequate steps were being taken to protect military installations amid reports that the National Defence College was among prime targets identified for attack by terrorists.
Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said there was a process of constant review of threat perceptions and targets and work on safeguards.
“You can rest assured that adequate precaution is taken wherever there is a threat perception,” he said in response to reports of disclosure made by two people arrested in U.S. by the FBI.
Reports said David Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, arrested in Chicago last week, discussed mounting a terror attack in India, including on the National Defence College, at the behest of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The New Delhi-based college trains senior defence and civil service officers, besides hosting representatives from other countries.
Mr. Raju, who inaugurated a seminar on Network Centricity in Homeland Security here, also expressed concern over the safety of nuclear weapons in Pakistan.
Responding to questions on the Taliban targeting Pakistani military bases linked to its nuclear facilities, Mr. Raju said the internal situation in Pakistan seemed to be deteriorating every day. “We really don’t know how long and how far the establishment would adequately be able to safeguard its strategic assets such as the nuclear.”
Addressing the seminar, he also stressed on the need for greater synergy among intelligence agencies to prevent another 26/11. “There is a requirement to institute a mechanism to centrally feed in and coordinate intelligence inputs, analyse the same, and disseminate it in real time to the end user.”
This set-up, Mr. Raju said, could be instituted at the State level and replicated at the national level, adding that it was time to create a post of National Intelligence Coordinator to handle the task on a full-time basis.
Chief of Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor told the seminar that the country could not afford a repeat of the Mumbai-type attack, and echoed the need for a nationwide architecture for sharing intelligence and security-related information.
Referring to the 9/11 attacks in the United States and the Bali bombings in Indonesia, General Kapoor said these countries had not allowed a repeat of such attacks, while India had allowed people to get away after the Parliament attack, Delhi blasts, and 26/11. “The time has come for the country to say no more,” he said.
