Peshawar attack is a warning to India

The massacre of over 140 schoolchildren and teachers by Taliban at the Army School in Peshawar sparked paroxysms of grief in that country and outrage world-wide. The sheer ghastliness of the atrocity prompted offers of assistance from the Indian PM to his counterpart in Pakistan, minutes of silence in both the Houses of the Indian Parliament and candlelight marches across India. Shortly thereafter, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack as a response to Pakistani airstrikes on Taliban hideouts in North Waziristan.

For India, the biggest threat that may come from the Peshawar massacre is the very real possibility of an attempted replication by indigenous jihadi elements targeting teaching establishments from pathshalas to public schools. Prior detection of such an attack is almost impossible. It will require good intelligence and a great deal of luck. According to Napoleon Bonaparte, the ultimate winning factor in war is luck. He is said to have selected his marshals of France accordingly. “I know he is a good general”, he is reported to have stated on more than one occasion, “but is he lucky?”

However, even luck requires a little help from time to time. Alas! India still awaits the additional boost it requires from a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and a National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) — both are stuck in the clogged sewerage of personal egos of ignorant politicians whom fate has pushed into the office of CMs. There is nothing more difficult to overcome than the ignorance of political minds. Both the NCTC as well as NATGRID are critically important to national security and should have been functional long ago.

The massacre of innocents in Peshawar has been followed by the news of Dawood Ibrahim’s presence in Pakistan. A website released a tape claiming Dawood’s presence in Karachi based on tapes received from Western diplomatic sources.

One could hear “Bhai Emeritus” and India’s most-wanted fugitive in extended telephone conversations from the upmarket Clifton area of Karachi discussing real estate and property deals. This comes after Pakistan’s repeated denials that Dawood is not in Pakistan. For Pakistan’s ISI, Dawood is an important asset against India as he is dedicated to destroying it. His “D Company” could be more appropriately termed as the “Dawood Network”, in the manner of the Haqqani Network, the latter in the AfPak border region of Pakistan, headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani, the senior patriarch of the Haqqani clan.

The “Dawood Network” is a criminal corporate with its headquarters in Karachi. Its closely intertwined holdings include massive commercial assets in India held through a complex of “business associates”. The recording has undoubtedly administered a sharp prod in the ribs to Indian agencies at both the Centre and state level. There is a prime necessity to take down the Dawood Network and its activities in India.

Dawood, his associates, his economic assets and organisational base in Mumbai should be tackled by a coordinated offensive of the National Investigating Agency, the CBI and the ED. All these agencies have demonstrated their capabilities recently with closely paralleled investigations into the Khagragarh bomb explosions and the Saradha chit-fund scam.

The school massacre by the TTP has recharged the debate on good and bad Taliban. Surrealistic shades of grey about the Taliban may exist within the Pakistani establishment, but in terms of their employability against India, all Taliban is good Taliban. India’s generic classification of “Taliban” stretches to cover all shades of “angry Islam” and its votaries, whose manifestations in this country range from the Al Qaeda makeover in the Indian sub-continent, now competing for space with Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Hizbul Mujahideen and other outgrowths like IM, the SIMI and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Within uncomfortable proximity in the immediate neighbourhood, in Bangladesh, are Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.

For India, there is no doubt at all. All Taliban are bad, guilty until proved innocent. India has a long generational acquaintance with most of them, ever since Pakistan’s Operation Gulmarg inducted tribal lashkars under Gen. Tariq into Kashmir in 1947, and fired the first shots of covert warfare there. Meanwhile, Indian security agencies have much to do and time is always at a premium.

The writer is a former Chief of Army Staff and former Member of Parliament