Date:26/09/2002 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2002/09/26/stories/2002092604031200.htm

National

NSG: success or a botched-up job?

By Harish Khare

New Delhi Sept. 25. Starting with the Deputy Prime Minister down to every other political leader there are only words of unreserved praise for the National Security Guards for "flushing out'' terrorists from the Akshardham temple, but the hardnosed security experts here and in Gandhinagar have a question to ask: why could the NSG commandos not take the terrorists alive? After all, it is part of the NSG training to make every effort to capture terrorists alive in such a situation.

It is pointed out that by the time the NSG commandos arrived at the scene, the terrorists holed inside had stopped firing. For most of the night, there was no fire from inside the temple. Where then was the need for the NSG commandos to make a frontal attack? Could the NSG not think of a strategy to outwait the holed up terrorists? Did the NSG leadership find itself stampeded into a decision? Did the presence of heavy-duty political leadership influence the NSG thinking and decision-making?

These are some of the aspects of the Operation Akshardham which been brushed aside in the emotional ambience. But a very senior police officer in Gandhinagar even called it a "botched-up'' operation. Apart from the fact that three commandos (one of them belonging to the NSG) have lost their lives, the unsentimental bottom line is that with the two terrorists dead the security forces have little by way of a "lead'' to go proceed further.

Nor can any one be absolutely sure whether there were more than only two terrorists and whether he or they have managed to make their escape. Did the terrorists have contacts or links or support structure in Ahemdabad or other parts of Gujarat or out of the State?

Mr. Advani has promptly declared "victory'', but with the avoidable death of the two terrorists the country may never know, for sure, who conceived and who planned the Operation Akshardham. Nor we may be able to gather the kind of incontrovertible evidence to satisfy the international community.