TERROR WAVE

INDIA’S coastline has a three-layered security cover. The outermost ring is managed by the Navy, which is tasked with protecting the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)—that is set to increase from the present 2.1 million square miles to 3 million square miles in 2009 by international conventions—and patrols the open seas near India whenever required.
The Lashkar men, who started off from Karachi in a mother ship that is suspected to be a foreign registered merchant ship, could have been intercepted even before they entered Indian waters if the Navy, which forms the first line of defence, had got intelligence updates about their movements.

According to the terror route drawn up by intelligence agencies, the mother ship dropped off the terrorists into small boats, from where they moved into and hijacked an Indian fishing trawler to avoid detection.
This is where the second layer of security failed. Closer to the shore, the Coast Guard has the responsibility of guarding India’s territorial waters that extend 12 nautical miles from the shoreline. The force patrols these waters and has the authority to stop and board any vessels plying in the region. The unloading of the terrorists, along with a fair amount of explosives and ammunition, from the mother ship to the fishing vessel, was not detected by Coast Guard boats.

The Coast Guard is facing serious shortages in force levels that are affecting its surveillance capabilities. The force, which has an authorised strength of 106 vessels and 52 aircraft, is down to a total of 92 ships and 45 aircraft. Several crucial procurements, including hovercrafts and fast patrol boats, are still pending with the Defence Ministry. Last year, a defence parliamentary committee blamed the ministry for not acquiring the “requisite number of vessels over the years”.
The most serious lapse, a parliamentary panel noted, was a gap in the surveillance capability of both the Navy and Coast Guard due to a lack of aerial platforms including UAVs, long range surveillance aircraft and medium range maritime Dornier aircraft that are crucial for surveillance.

Once the terrorists were close to the shore, they lowered themselves into smaller inflatable boats—which they arranged for locally—and then split into at least two groups for the attacks. Here is when they breached the third and innermost layer of security. The security of the coastline itself is with the police forces of the respective states. The ease with which the terrorists managed to land with a sizeable amount of arms and ammunition confirmed what experts have long known—the marine wings of police forces are woefully short of resources and manpower to guard the shore.

While a detailed Coastal Security Plan has been drawn up, most of it has not been implemented. State governments have set up only 55 out of the total 73 coastal police stations that figure in the plans. States are short of more than 200 boats of different tonnages required to patrol the shore. Training has kicked off at navy and coast guard academies but the biggest impediment in the way is a lack of boats to patrol the waters.

According to an officer, who did not want to be named, the over-60 km-long coast between Medi in Kutch and Jakhau in Bhuj is completely unguarded. At least three cases of detected or foiled infiltration bids occurred in this stretch. Earlier, in an attempt to find a permanent solution to this, the Border Security Force (BSF) had acquired All Terrain Vehicles and hovercrafts earlier this year. The ambitious project that aimed to strengthen security in the creek and costal areas, however, fell flat when these expensive vehicles failed to operate in the marshy terrain.

INTELLIGENCE agencies have pointed out the vulnerability of the coastline in various reports and studies. A recent central intelligence report had even warned the Gujarat frontier of the BSF and the Coast Guard about some new launching pads and getaways for terrorists that had come up in the Thatta and Badin districts of Pakistan in the last one year.
Six months ago, another intelligence report alerted security agencies about the possible entry of terrorists into India via sea. “The input received by us around mid-June this year specifically mentioned Maharashtra and Mumbai,” an officer said. Gujarat intelligence, too, had alerted the BSF and the Coast Guard about the increasing vulnerability of the coast to illegal infiltration and smuggling.

On October 11, the Coast Guard apprehended eight Pakistani nationals near Nalia in Bhuj. A Pakistani motorboat had dropped them off on an uninhabited island opposite Jakhau. These men had paid about Rs 15,000 for being illegally ferried to India. Though Kutch police found nothing suspicious about them during investigations, the incident once again exposed the vulnerability of the vast coastline across Gujarat to infiltration.
In July 2007, Kutch police had busted a counterfeit Indian currency racket that was being carried out through the porous sea route between India and Pakistan.
While the fencing on the Indo-Pak land border across Gujarat is nearing completion, the coastal and creeks areas continue to remain porous despite intelligence pointing to serious threats from the sea.