Twin blasts. 44 dead. 54 injured. After the familiar media-storm and the incident-led patterns of response and analysis, it is high time we addressed the tremendous capacity deficits that afflict every aspect of security and intelligence management
Ajai Sahni
Editor
The attack in Peshawar is an index and manifestation of the wider radicalisation and brutalisation of large segments of the Pakistani population and society.
It remains unclear what strategic purpose the apparently massive use of firepower has served, or what material damage it has inflicted on military or vital infrastructure.
Eminent Indian experts were particularly agitated by the fact that the Zawahiri's declaration specifically mentions three Indian States, Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat and Assam, and that these would 'now become immediate targets'
The Modi government has hit the ground running and provided significant indicators of its approach to the principal internal security challenges. Will it be up to the task?
Despite recent claims of arrests of terrorists, India's internal security apparatus continues to suffer extreme susceptibility under the control of an ignorant, deeply compromised and corrupt political executive.
The country has been fortunate that the attention of its adversaries has, for some time, been turned elsewhere. But India cannot think itself secure if her only defence remains a reliance on the inattention of her enemies.
Rarely has precedent intelligence been as specific as it was in the case of the threat to Bodh Gaya.
' After 9/11, the US created its NCTC and, since, had no further terrorist attacks on its soil; ergo, we must have the NCTC, and there will be no further terrorist attacks in India as well.'
This was a disaster waiting to happen. Deliberate and sustained falsification of realities led to the complacency that resulted in the Maoist massacre of May 25
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