Northeast shocks

The tragic deaths of 20 people — including children and women — as a result of a bomb blast at a small town over 500-km east of Guwahati in Assam on Independence Day come as a major blot on the efficiency and effectiveness of both the Congress-led government in the state and its police force. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has already admitted to shabby policing and has suspended the SP and DSP of the district. The fact that there were two other terrorist bomb blasts in different locations of the state — fortunately without casualties — only goes to prove the lax security arrangements in a state that has been witness to militant activity for decades.

It should have been obvious, even to a child, that militants — the ULFA is believed to be behind the latest outrage — would try and attempt a terrorist strike on a significant national day like August 15. Security arrangements should have been more stringent than normal given this possibility. It is for this reason that the venues for such events are carefully chosen and sanitised. What is clear is the failure of leadership in the police force. What is, perhaps, less clear is the failure of political leadership, both at the Centre and the state.

The question is inevitable: if Bhutan can decimate the ULFA and other terrorists in its jungles, why cannot our political leadership and state police do so? At the level of the police, it seems that the reforms in the management of national security, introduced more than three years ago, has had little effect. A primary central police organisation like the CRPF has been failing in recent weeks even to protect itself. And the Group of Ministers’ decision to de-induct the army and the BSF from counter-terrorism and internal security duties has had to be reversed because of the failures of the CRPF. What is, therefore, also needed is an urgent audit of the implementation of the reforms authorised in 2001 to decide the future course of action beyond the specific incidents. As for the political management of the security of the region, the Union home ministry had better shake off its characteristic apathy and ensure that the Congress governments in the region, at the very least, get their act together.