Raid on the Red Fort

THE attack on the Red Fort by militants of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on December 22 has come at a time when attempts to start a dialogue between the Indian government and Kashmiri groups were making steady progress. The attack, which took place on a nigh t when the area was experiencing a power blackout, claimed the lives of three people, two of them Army jawans. The attackers escaped under the cover of darkness.

The LeT along with a handful of other extreme fundamentalist groups had made known its opposition to the resumption of dialogue between the government and the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC). New Delhi should have been aware that extremist groups in Pakistan would attempt to derail the peace moves at any cost. The Red Fort, given its symbolic importance to the Indian state, should have been better protected owing to the growing threat perceptions.

The government has admitted that a security lapse led to the attack. The government has come under severe criticism from all the opposition parties. The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), while condemning the attack, said that it was "amazing'' that such an attack could take place in a high-security zone in the country's capital. "That the militants could barge into such a sensitive area, catching the security fores unawares, reflects a serious lapse," the statement said.

Ashfaque Ali, who was arrested by the Delhi Police in connection with the attack on the Red Fort; the body of Abdul Shamul, another alleged attacker, who was shot dead by the police.

The Army has ordered a high level inquiry into the incident. Defence Minister George Fernandes was, however, quick to emphasise that the attack would not adversely affect the course of the peace talks. Home Minister L.K. Advani described the incident as an attempt by the militants to "sabotage" the peace talks. The Defence Minister denied that intelligence failure was the cause for the security lapse. However, he admitted that "security inside the premises is virtually nil as otherwise it would cause a major problem to those who visit the historic place." The Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, held an emergency meeting the day after the terrorist attack, to review the security situation.

Fernandes told the media that the government had "clearly indicated to Pakistan to rein in militant groups like the LeT and the Harkat-ul-Ansar so that an atmosphere conducive to talks was created and now it seems that either Islamabad is not interested or it does not have control over those fundamentalist groups." Senior Pakistani officials have been saying that one reason why they are in favour of talks on Kashmir at the earliest is that they want extremist groups such as the LeT out of the picture. T hey say that if the Indian government's talks with the APHC do not take off, the situation would get more complicated for all the parties concerned, given the fact that more extremists groups are getting increasingly active in the valley.

THE Red Fort is a tightly guarded place. Entry is allowed only through two gates, the Lahori Gate and the Salimgarh Gate, which are manned by Army personnel. All vehicles are allowed in after being checked thoroughly. The security drill is undertaken owi ng to the fact that there are two interrogation centres, of the I.B. and the Military Intelligence, housed within the sprawling complex. The Red Fort is a designated national heritage site and questions have been raised about the rationale for it being u sed for security and military purposes. The Red Fort is also the headquarters of the 7 Rajputana Rifles. The heavy Army presence has adversely affected the upkeep of the Red Fort, which occupies 40 hectares of land in one of the most congested areas of D elhi.

The attack at the Red Fort comes a few weeks after a shootout at the residence of the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sushil Kumar. During that incident too there was a glaring lack of coordination between the Military Police and the Delhi Police. The Delhi Police chief, in fact, was not allowed entry into the Naval chief's residence by the Naval commandos. The Delhi Police were denied entry into the Red Fort too after the attack by LeT militants. In fact, the Delhi Police first came to know about the incident from the office of the British Broadcasting Corporation in New Delhi, which had received a fax from the LeT claiming credit for the attack.

The Delhi Police soon took the matter into their own hands and after two days claimed that it had killed one of the LeT militants involved in the Red Fort attack. Subsequent events have, however, dented the credibility of the Delhi Police's version of th e events. The Delhi Police have claimed that one Abu Shamal, the alleged LeT activist killed by it, was a Pakistani national. However, Shamal's parents reportedly hail from Uttar Pradesh and have approached the authorities for an explanation about the ci rcumstances under which their son died. Residents of the area in South Delhi, where the alleged LeT militant was killed, debunked the police story of a shootout; they said he was a victim of yet another "encounter" staged by the Delhi Police.

The United States State Department had predicted last year that South Asia had replaced West Asia as the leading locus of terrorism in the world. International opinion is that militant groups such as the LeT and the Harkat pose a long-term danger to inte rnational security and regional stability. The current focus of organisations such as the LeT may be limited to the "liberation"of Kashmir, but their real objective, according to experts, is to turn Pakistan into a truly "Islamic" State. Even more alarmi ng is the rise of the cult of the "suicide bomber" in South Asia. Since the October 1983 suicide mission, which killed 300 U.S. and French soldiers in Beirut, suicide terrorism has proved to be simpler and more cost-effective than conventional terrorism.