This is not to say that all is hunky-dory with Gujarat under Modi, but only to point that the Congress-led UPA government can ill-afford to ignore the political dimension of the internal security issue. The internal security meeting in the Capital last week clearly showed that nearly all state chief ministers wanted anti-terror law sans the draconian provisions of the now repealed Pota, as they made it very clear that their states were ill-equipped to handle terror. However, the UPA government’s record in matters of national security leaves much to be desired. Given its sensitivity to vote banks, the present government not only refused to develop new tools to fight terror but also has made enforcement agencies toothless by repealing Pota and putting the recommendations of the Justice V.S. Malimath Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System on the back burner.

The fact is that the current internal security scenario in the country is rather grave, with Naxalites on the rampage and terrorists striking at will every two to three months. Even eight years after the Kandahar episode, the chief hijacker, Athar Ibrahim, brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Masood Azhar, is actively involved in targeting India. The internal security agencies have intercepted web chats between the Pakistan-trained Munawar, alias Okasa, who was the leader of three JeM militants arrested by the UP police on November 16, and Rawalpindi-based Ibrahim, on the selection of VVIP targets in India. But then the UPA internal security managers love playing politics with terror. Otherwise, how can one explain the premature exposure of the three JeM militants to the public and media without Munawar, the Muzaffarnagar-born leader of the Jaish terror module, having been nabbed? This question obviously was not on top of the mind for the UPA establishment but their grouse was that Rahul Gandhi’s name was unnecessarily dragged into the entire issue by the UP government. And Mayawati apparently was unhappy that Rahul Gandhi, who was allegedly the target of these JeM militants, got some undeserved publicity.

... contd.