Mumbai remains a target one year on from a deadly militant attack, experts say, calling for more to be done to improve security in the city and elsewhere in India to prevent another strike.
“Can 26/11 happen again? Yes, any time,” warned retired Major General V.K. Datta, India’s most decorated army officer, referring to the Nov. 26 attacks that killed 166 people and injured more than 300 last year.
The acting head of Maharashtra state police, A.N. Roy, said that more vigilance and better counter-terrorism measures were vital because Mumbai played a key role in India’s economy.
His counterpart at Mumbai police, D. Sivanandan, said improvements have been made since the force was found lacking training, equipment and manpower against the 10 heavily armed Islamist gunmen who stormed the city 12 months ago.
More police in Mumbai and other Indian cities would provide a more effective first response to any future attack, analysts said, also calling for greater use of technology and better coordination between central and state agencies.
“We have not improved our preventive capability,” Datta told India Today magazine earlier this month.
Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram, praised for pushing security up the agenda since his appointment late last year, also warned that India is just as vulnerable as before, calling the response to the Mumbai attacks “mixed.”
In Mumbai itself, there have been noticeable changes.
Luxury hotels such as the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, which was targeted by gunmen, have introduced tougher baggage screening and searches, while sandbagged machinegun positions appeared at key locations.
A new base for 250 elite National Security Guard commandos — one of four around the country — opened in Mumbai after criticism that they only arrived from their north India headquarters 10 hours after the first shots were fired.
Both the Maharashtra and Mumbai police have also set up their own rapid reaction forces as part of a 1.3 billion rupee (US$28 million) state government investment in training and equipment.
The Mumbai police central control room is being modernized and security cameras installed around the city, Sivanandan told business leaders earlier this month.
“As far as the police is concerned, whatever is possible is being done. We have got a long way to go. Give me another 100 crores [1 billion rupees] and I will do a lot better than this,” he said.
Some experts say that after a spate of bombings across India last year, the fact there has been no attack in the country in the last 12 months is proof the measures have been effective.
But some plans, including a promised improved coastal security system — seen as vital because the gunmen arrived undetected by sea — are yet to materialize.
Others believe Pakistan’s intelligence agency and army, which New Delhi blames for supporting the attacks, are focused on gathering unrest at home rather than sponsoring assaults on their neighbor.
Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute of Conflict Management and editor of the South Asia Intelligence Review, called the changes in homeland security “nothing more than symbolic.”
“In terms of actual capacity, response or overall security, there’s been no significant change,” he told reporters, blaming a lack of political will to tackle the problem effectively.
Roy, though, said more had been done than after previous attacks on the city.
“Whereas the terrorists have access to the latest technology, communications and resources, we still are many, many, many steps behind. We are at a very nascent stage,” he said.
Sahni said boosting police capacity was vital as forces across India are severely understaffed, particularly of experienced senior officers.
Enforcement of security measures is difficult because Mumbai has only 48,000 officers for an official population of about 14 million, he said. The central government has said it would recruit 150,000 low-ranking police officers across the country by March, though some experts say quality police using modern technology should be the biggest priority.
“Today, we feel much more confident than we were one year ago — but there is still a long way to go,” Roy told a security conference this month.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS