The Hindu : Internal security situation extremely grave: Advani

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 14, 2003

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Internal security situation extremely grave: Advani

By Anjali Mody

The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the Assam Governor, S.K. Sinha, and the Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, at the inauguration of `Brahmputra beach festival' in Guwahati on Monday. — PTI

Guwahati Jan. 13. The deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, today said the security situation in India was "extremely grave''. Not like an "emergency'' but "like war''.

A reflection of this was the fact that all the leaders of India were "under threat all the time''.

This was not the case in any other country, he told mediapersons while on his way to the Brahmaputra Beach festival at Guwahati in which he was the chief guest.

"One Lord Mountbatten was killed... there was a bomb attack on Margaret Thatcher,'' he said adding, "given everything I know, I feel I am alive only because of luck.''

Mr. Advani said cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and India's eastern neighbours had made "even the internal security situation a war-like situation''. However, he sought to draw a distinction between Pakistan and the eastern neighbours. The latter, he said, supported "indigenous'', not foreign, terrorist organisations, gave them asylum, gave them arms, "but not in the manner Pakistan gives them.''

Such was the concern over internal security, Mr. Advani said, that the meetings in Delhi of Governors, Chief Secretaries and Directors-General of Police had focused on the subject. The Government's approach in dealing with the problem was that "India is a democratic country, but a democratic state need not be a soft state.''

He said it was democracy which made the Government talk to the Naga secessionist movement, the NSCN (I-M), and to reverse the decisions that were "not fair'' — for example, the one not to prosecute the journalist, Iftikhar Gilani. Equally, he said, it was "the urgency to dispel the image of a soft state'' which led the Government to suspend the passport of "elements who keep on running down the country, even abroad.'' Asked if he did not believe that a democracy like India could survive criticism at home or abroad, he said, "No. I do not see that. Democracy does not mean allowing everyone to do whatever they want. Which country allows that?''

Mr. Advani commended the United States President, George W. Bush, who is reported to have authorised the U.S. Air Force to shoot down any plane that was hijacked, after news came in of the first three plane attacks on September 11. He said that this willingness to take the 100 or so civilian casualties that this would have entailed was an example of "a democracy which is not soft.''

On the subject of "absconding terrorists'', he said the Government was "still hopeful'' of having the underworld don and Bombay blasts accused, Abu Salem, extradited from Portugal. The fact that the Portuguese had arrested him and kept him in jail this long was a good sign.

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