Indo-Pak CBMs may help combat terrorism in India: US State Dept

Washington, Apr 28 (UNI) The increased confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan and the former's improved tactics against terrorists, making significant arrests in 2005, may help India prevent further growth in terrorism within its borders, according to the US State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism 2005, released here this morning.

However, the report noted that India's counterterrorism efforts are hampered by its outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems. Terrorism trials can take years to complete as the Indian court system is slow, laborious, and prone to corruption.

Many of India's local police forces are poorly staffed, trained and equipped to combat terrorism effectively. Despite these challenges, India scored major successes, including numerous arrests and the seizure of explosives and firearms during operations against the resurgent Sikh terrorist group Babbar Khalsa International, it said.

On the other hand the State Department report praised the Indian government for its excellent record of protecting its nuclear assets from terrorists, and is taking steps to improve further the security of its strategic systems. It pointed out that the Indian parliament passed the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in May and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Bill, designed to prevent the transfer of the WMD, delivery systems and associated technologies to state and non-state actors, including terrorists.

The Indian government, it said, also announced a new policy on airplane hijackings that included directing ground crews to obstruct a hijacked plane from taking off and a clearance procedure for authorising the shooting down of a hijacked plane in flight that might endanger civilians on the ground.

As in previous years, terrorists staged hundreds of attacks on people and property in India. The most prominent terrorist groups are violent extremist separatists operating in Jammu and Kashmir, Maoists in the ''Naxalite belt'' in eastern India and ethno-linguistic nationalists in India' north eastern states, the report said.

It noted that there were simultaneously bombings in two movie theaters in New Delhi by a Sikh terrorist organisation, the Babbar Khalsa International, which many thought was defunct. On October 29 a series of explosions in crowded marketplaces and on a public bus in New Delhi killed approximately 60 people on the eve of Diwali, India's most important Hindu festival. The Indian government blamed the designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) Lashkar-e-Toiba (LT) for the attack.

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