Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday appeared to harden his stand on Pakistan and said the security environment in the country was "uncertain". "There are reports of cross-border camps for terrorists being reactivated and of attempts to induct fresh batches of militants into the country," Singh told the country's top police officers at the annual DGPs/ IGPs Conference in the Capital.
Manmohan's remarks are significant as they come days after a blast at the Delhi high court that has hallmarks of a Pakistan-backed Kashmiri outfit.
The home and defence ministries have always claimed that terror camps in Pakistan had never closed down.
The foreign ministry too seems to have hardened its stand on Pakistan and welcomed the US designating the Indian Mujahideen (IM) as a foreign terrorist organisation.
"It recognises that the IM has links with the Pakistanbased Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harakat-ul-Jehadi Islami. This underscores the destructive agenda of these organisations with trans-regional links and operations," foreign ministry officials said.
The PM said there was no room for complacency on security in Jammu and Kashmir.
Manmohan emphasised the need for NATGRID to outwit terrorists. NATGRID, a pet project of home minister P. Chidambaram, was cleared by the government after much delay over privacy concerns only on June 6, 2011.
"We have to remain one step ahead of our adversaries. I hope that the NATGRID will enable seamless retrieval and dissemination of the data critical to the task of anticipating and preempting terrorist attacks," the PM said.
But Manmohan made no mention of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), which is pending approval with the PMO. At the same conference on Thursday, Chidambaram had lamented that the NCTC remained the "most important unfinished agenda" as no organisation in India was "devoting its whole time and energy" to stop terror strikes.
The PM admitted that human intelligence capabilities were wanting and these were difficult times for the security forces.
"Grassroots information and intelligence collection systems have languished or fallen into disuse in some places," Manmohan said.
He said it was "not realistic" to expect high levels of efficiency from policemen unless their living and working conditions were improved. "Currently, the constabulary is over- stretched and asked to perform multifarious duties. Many of them find it difficult to get suitable accommodation and are forced to live in slum areas," the PM said.
Manmohan said the country was being targeted by organised terrorism, abetted by "misguided zeal and false propaganda" among the youth and marginalised sections of society. "Policing the metropolitan areas requires special attention," he said in an apparent reference to the attacks on Mumbai and Delhi.
The PM asked the police to ensure there was no bias against minorities in terror investigations.
"The existence of such a perception is inimical to effective policing. I would like you to consider ways and means to deal with the causes of such perceptions," he said.
On left-wing extremism, he said there were some successes on the ground but a collective effort was required to bring about a "decisive change".
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