Monday, Sep 30, 2002
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By Vinay Kumar
While describing "terrorism fuelled by religious extremism'' as the greatest threat to India's internal security, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, said that terrorism could not be fought only by the security forces. In his inaugural speech at the three-day conference of the Director-Generals and Inspector-Generals of Police, Mr. Advani listed three recent developments which had drawn the world's attention towards terrorism and internal security problems faced by India — the arrest of the fugitive, Abu Salem, in Lisbon, Pakistan's efforts to disrupt the Jammu and Kashmir polls and the storming of the Akshardham temple by terrorists. Seeking the full cooperation of all sections of society, particularly the media, in the fight against terrorism, Mr. Advani said: "Terrorism is an evil which the Government alone cannot overcome.'' Mr. Advani, a former journalist himself long ago, found himself expounding on the role of the media in tackling terrorism, pointing out how some of the reports of the storming of the Akshardham temple and the subsequent commando operation had lacked balance. Asking the media to be "cautious and serious'' in reporting terrorist incidents, Mr. Advani said the media should not contribute to the cause of spreading terror which the terrorists want to create in the minds of the people. "Showing shots of mangled corpses attract attention but the media should also think of the consequences as its impact is far and wide,'' he said. He appeared sore at the media for giving little importance to the three commandos, including one of the National Security Guards (NSG), who had laid down their lives in the night-long operation at the Akshardham temple.
Referring to the criticism by a few newspapers who had questioned the clues worked out by the agencies in the Akshardham temple case, he said: "This kind of criticism is not fair, it acts as a dampener to the security forces. I expect fairplay and balance in the media reports,'' he said.
Pat for security agencies
He complimented the security agencies for providing an early breakthrough in the case which clearly pointed to the attack "being not merely an act of terrorism, but of cross-border terrorism. The entire country and the world would know the difference between the two.'' Pointing out that the oft-quoted charge of "intelligence failure'' against the intelligence agencies had become too cliched, he said their sources were "doing reasonably well.'' But the absence of specific intelligence input made it difficult for the Government to take any action, he said.
J&K elections
Turning to the Jammu and Kashmir polls, Mr. Advani said the democratic process was unfolding in the backdrop of a bold, sustained and successful campaign against cross-border terrorism. "Unlike in the late 80s and the 90s, what remains is almost exclusively terrorism by infiltrators from across the border,'' he said. The Deputy Prime Minister said that cross-border terrorism, which was being pursued as a matter of State policy and as a strategy for proxy war by our neighbour, had completely changed the nature of engagement. He said Pakistan's repeated demand for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir would be negated if the Assembly polls were completed in a free, fair and participatory manner. "The concern shown by the western nations underlines the importance they attach to the elections and it has even been realised by Pakistan whose primary aim was to disrupt the elections,'' Mr. Advani said. Earlier, in his welcome address, the Intelligence Bureau Director, K.P. Singh, said that incidents of violence and terror strikes in Gujarat had shown that there was no room for complacency. Listing the achievements of the police and security agencies in fighting terrorism, he said that over 2,800 terrorists had been killed in the past one year and human rights violations were "minimal.'' PTI reports: In a veiled criticism of the Haryana Police for their role in the arrest of the senior IPS officer, Ravi Kant Sharma, by the Delhi Police, Mr. Advani said it was wrong to adopt an attitude of ``us-versus-them.'' ``We are worried about the criminal justice system, especially the division of police of two States. This reflects that even if an official of one State is arrested for some crime, the assumption is that he belongs to us. This is very strange,'' Mr. Advani said. ``The media reports in the last two days do not reflect well on the police department as a whole,'' he said in an apparent reference to reports that Mr. Sharma had enjoyed the support of the Haryana Police during his run from the Delhi Police.
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