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Govt goes easy on terror alerts

In a break from the past, intelligence agencies have not issued ‘startling’ warnings to security agencies. The Centre, too, has not endorsed any warning.

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Thanks to the post-Mumbai shake up, better coordination and experience of recent months, the security establishment is showing a mature approach towards “terror threats” made before Independence Day.

In a break from the past, intelligence agencies have not issued ‘startling’ warnings to security agencies. The Centre, too, has not endorsed any warning. Instead, the home ministry has advised states not to publicise unsubstantiated threats and create panic.

The government has realised that emails or phonecalls warning of terror strikes do not “reflect legitimate threats”, but are “almost always hoax”. Many of the source-based threats too are “turning out to be unreliable.” The establishment is now beginning to accept that terrorists do not carry out attacks after forewarning TV channels and security agencies. At best, like the Indian Mujahideen, they warn a few minutes before the attack for greater impact.

In effect, the traditional approach is giving way for a more intelligent response. Earlier, the security establishment would respond to phone calls, emails, snail mails warning of terror attacks without verification. But, they’ve now realised that “these waste resources”, said a senior official. Yesterday, a flight in Delhi was aborted after a terror threat. The phone call happened to come from a passenger who had missed the flight. “Half-baked information from unreliable sources is the order of the day,” says an IPS officer who has handled intelligence for years.

After the Mumbai attacks, the Centre set up a multi-agency centre and other mechanisms to improve vetting and coordination among various security and intelligence agencies. The result, sources say, is a “better scrutiny of inputs from all over.”

And the result has been startling. Almost all threats by email, phone and snail mail are always fake, it now emerges. Most of these threats are sent by vested interests wanting to take revenge on rivals, or someone missing a flight, or in some instances just prank, say sources.

Many of the major terror alerts that emerged from security agencies in J&K, state polices and the army have been unreliable. For example, two major alerts by the military recently have been unsubstantiated: One was about a possible landing of explosives on the western coast and the other was the movement of terrorists form J&K to Hyderabad.

Officials are now beginning to admit to one certainty: That the next attack wouldn’t come announced.
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