City like Mumbai provides perfect cover of anonymity

The cosmopolitan character of Mumbai, which Mumbaikars are proud of and which many across the country vouch for, brings its own disadvantages. The same character offers cover of anonymity to many people living in the city, including terrorists and other criminal operatives engaged in operations on a trans-national scale.

This is why the Mumbai Police has not been able to make any arrests despite concrete intelligence tip-offs of about half-a-dozen Huji terrorists having come to Mumbai from Bangladesh. “Be it Huji members or those belonging to other groups, you may never get to notice them unless they commit an operational security blunder,” says Parambir Singh, a senior officer with the state Anti-Terrorism Squad.

According to security analysts, extensive surveillance used by the police to flush out terrorists from hold-outs comes unstuck as they often run afoul of civil liberties.

The ‘stop and search’ method of policing, by way of which all individuals who appear suspicious are stopped and searched, also does not always yield positive results. “By using such methods, you may, by sheer chance, get to track a terrorist sleeper cell member down,” says a senior officer from a central intelligence agency.

Security officers agree that timely actionable intelligence is the best weapon to thwart an imminent terror attack. “The intelligence community members are well networked and timely sharing of effective intelligence often comes in handy,” says an intelligence officer. Also, the fact that terrorist elements choose to closely collaborate and co-ordinate among themselves automatically leads to better networking skills and cohesion.

National Security Adviser MK Narayanan’s statement that groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and al-Qaeda are part of “one single terror compact” makes complete sense in the context of things. “This element of solidarity in turn minimises chances of them getting noticed in the first place,” says Singh. In any case, most terrorists are often experts in various camouflage techniques designed to hoodwink the ubiquitous cops.