World | India
Government unveils anti-terror steps
A national investigation agency, new counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism schools and the creation of a coastal command were among the measures India announced yesterday, while categorically stating that it could not be "business as usual" with Pakistan following the Mumbai terror attack.
- IANS
- Published: 23:41 December 11, 2008
New Delhi: A national investigation agency, new counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism schools and the creation of a coastal command were among the measures India announced yesterday, while categorically stating that it could not be "business as usual" with Pakistan following the Mumbai terror attack.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani were amongst the leaders who spoke in the Lok Sabha, the lower house, on the 60-hour Mumbai siege in which more than 170 people were killed and stressed that the nation was one in this war against terror.
"We expect Pakistan to take some positive steps. It is for the Pakistan government to decide," Mukherjee told the Indian parliament during the discussion on the November 26 Mumbai terror siege.
Expectations
"People expect this country to take resolute action which will convey the message that the territorial integrity of the country can't be ignored. And nobody dare do it," he said.
India, Mukherjee said, wanted Pakistan to hand over 40 people it believes are behind militant attacks and other crimes but ruled out military action as a solution.
"Unless the action is carried to its logical conclusion like banning terrorist outfits and the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure, it will not help," Mukherjee said in his tough message to Pakistan.
Alluding to some recent steps taken by Pakistani security agencies against terror outfits in that country, Mukherjee stressed that the crackdown on terror must be seen to be genuine. "They are simply changing the signboard. Ideology is the same and activities are the same," he said, referring to the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a militant outfit suspected of having masterminded the Mumbai carnage, which resurrected itself as the Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD).
Hoping to plug gaps in the intelligence and security apparatus, Chidambaram unveiled anti-terror reforms and also asserted that India could not go back to "business as usual" with Pakistan.
"We will strain every nerve to defend our borders. Given the nature of the threats, we cannot go back to business as usual. Hard decisions will be taken to protect our country and its people. The finger of suspicion unmistakably points to the territory of our neighbour Pakistan," he said in his first address to the Lok Sabha after taking over as home minister on December 1.
He disclosed that intelligence reports of a suspected LeT vessel attempting to infiltrate into Mumbai was shared with the Coast Guard as well as the naval intelligence.
He emphasised that there was need to make the intelligence machinery "effective" and "result-oriented".
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