Sea terror: states told to give more teeth to Coast Guard

The meeting will be preceded by a meeting of state Home Secretaries and the internal security establishment on Monday. At these meetings, the states will report on the progress made in setting up police outposts and strengthening police stations along the coastline. Under the plan, States and UTs will be issued a new standard operating procedure that has been prepared by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) and state police will be trained in sea patrolling.

Home Ministry officials said that more than 100 patrol boats, costing nearly Rs 400 crore, will be acquired for the coastal state police to monitor the coastline upto 10 km into the sea. While some bigger states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka have already got patrol boats, the Home Ministry is expected to float a centralised tender for the acquisition of these vehicles. A sum of over Rs 100 crore has been set aside for new police stations on the coast and strengthening the existing ones.

The Home Ministry is considering a suggestion that the crew of these patrol boats be outsourced to private parties with the presence of police officials for law enforcement purposes. As boat crew is governed by the Merchant Shipping Act and would come under Director General (Shipping) — and not under the state police — a number of states were against additional recruitment of staff by them to act as crew.

These measures are being undertaken by the Home Ministry to prevent the sea route being used by terrorists to enter India. As the Indian coastline is vulnerable to drug smuggling, the Home Ministry has impressed upon states to give NDPS powers to the Coast Guard (that patrols within Indian EEZ). Already, Maharashtra has taken the lead and other states have been asked to follow suit.

Coastal states are under pressure to tighten internal security as there is appreciation within the Home Ministry that not only terrorists could use the coast to land arms and ammunition but also go for high-value Indian targets in the sea (like oil wells) and on the coastline.

Besides the RDX landings on the Konkan coast prior to the Mumbai blasts in 1993, the sea route has been used both by terrorists and the underworld to dump arms and troopers into India.

Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who was killed by Gujarat STF headed by D G Vanjara, had a series of cases against him and his associate Rafiq was involved in smuggling arms from Pakistan via the Porbander route. Arms are brought to Indian waters by trawlers and taken to land by small boats.