The Terror Protocol

By M H Ahssan

The anger is real, as real as the terror we see and experience. The sense of outrage is not against individuals, not against particular political parties, not even against the government but against the system in general and the helplessness to change the behemoth, which we characterise as “the system”. For the first time the terrorist has done us a service. He has ruthlessly scraped the raw and festering wound of Indian pride and not only united us but also imbued us with a determination to settle only for concrete action. In every tragedy and calamity, there is an opportunity. We have to see it, understand it and seize it.

Responses — both at the level of rhetoric and at the level of concrete action — have been many and varied. Both are important. Solid, quiet work towards strengthening our existing system has to be accompanied by the right sounds, the right symbolism, and the right international moves. Each must reinforce the other.

We have to start by developing a terror protocol. The numerous agencies and bodies involved in securing our security have to be vastly improved, and they must function like well-oiled wheels of a common chariot. The terror protocol must provide for specified steps, clearly spelt out, in the event of a terror strike. It can have different sub-categories — for example, to differentiate between a hostage and a non-hostage situation, a hijack versus a bomb explosion — but it must delineate the precise steps to be taken in each situation by each agency, state and federal. This should not be too difficult after the proposed federal anti-terror coordinating agency is set up.

A central control room with a supercomputer is a must, with similar control rooms in each state capital, into which every piece of information, every kind of lead is immediately fed. The best and the brightest Indian IT brains and sleuths must man the central and state control rooms. Prevention and cure are both best done by evaluation of intelligence and of evidence.

In each terror incident, the perpetrators must be made to pay and bleed. Unless there is a price to pay there cannot be even minimalist deterrence. Efficient prosecution to ensure conviction of the accused is one part of the story. Timebound implementation of the sentence in the event of conviction, including a timebound decision on clemency petitions, is another part. This cannot be a matter of politics and the timeline for such decisions must be stipulated by law.

The most important part is to impose a penalty on those actors, be they state or non-state actors, in other parts of the world, especially Pakistan. The possibility of Pakistan ever handing over any such organiser of terror is virtually non-existent. There are enough organisations in every country — RAW in India is one such — and there are enough precedents, practices and protocols in international law and relations where such foreign actors can and have been neutralised without the futile and tedious process of seeking their extradition.

There are also many countries which have done much more than India in this regard, with even less provocation. Democracy has limitations but it has never ceased to be based on realpolitik, whether of the Machiavellian or the Chanakya sort. Formal war is hardly an option and all variants of hot pursuit and targeted missile attacks involve some element of such formal war.

All this has to be accompanied by the usual but vital additions — a global diplomatic and publicity blitzkrieg in every major country sharing the detailed evidence of Pakistani complicity, revamping our intelligence network, considerable enhancement of the power, status and entitlement of the beat constable, larger police reforms,substantial funding for equipment, personnel and institutions engaged in the war on terror and a vow to continue these efforts uninterrupted and unchanged for at least two years continuously. The results will be there for all to see in less than 18 months.