A grand failure, again

After Uri, India must take a hard look at repeated security lapses

Senior ministers have, predictably, fulminated and threatened Pakistan with dire, if unspecified, consequences over the deaths of 18 soldiers from a fidayeen attack on an army base in Uri. It may be more constructive if they directed their collective anger towards demanding an honest enquiry into how Pakistan-sponsored terrorists are able to regularly breach India's borders with alarming ease. Uri is the latest incident, but since 2015 there have been more than 10 such episodes of varying intensity, involving many deaths. Taken together with the attacks in Pathankot in January, when four militants entered an airbase, and in Gurdaspur in July 2015, when militants lay siege to a police station, hard questions need to be asked about how such infiltrations occur and catch the security forces by surprise along a lengthening line of the Indo-Pakistan border.

The burden of evidence suggests laxity on various fronts, including in military operations. The tragedy in Uri is a case in point since it took place at a time when the army was on high alert owing to the unrest in the Kashmir Valley. Uri is a forward base along the Line of Control and it would be assumed to be well guarded. Yet, the militants were able to enter it with consummate ease on Sunday night and set fire to tents in which soldiers were sleeping. Evidence of an operational failure by the Indian army is difficult to ignore. Why were no extra security precautions taken when the intelligence agencies had sent a specific written warning of an attack targeted at Uri, involving a Pakistani Border Action Team and trained jihadis only the week before? It is inexplicable that the combat echelons of the two battalions would have been posted to forward posts along the LoC, leaving the camp's administrative and support staff virtually unguarded.

The bigger question is the robustness of the security apparatus along the Indo-Pakistan border, not just along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir but also, as is becoming increasingly apparent, on the Punjab side. Though it is accepted that the steeply mountainous and riverine terrain makes a physical border difficult to maintain and patrol, technological solutions such as lasers, infrared sensors and floodlights have been deployed in recent years to plug surveillance gaps. Yet in Pathankot, militants had no problem circumventing such barriers or, indeed, human security forces. No sensors appeared to register the cutting of barbed wire and no soldier appeared to notice the jihadis' resting overnight on campus.

All of this suggests either rank inefficiency or deep-seated collusive corruption on both sides of the border. With Punjab providing a booming market for drugs - grown cheaply in Afghanistan and transported even more cost-effectively through Pakistan - the border has long been a common entrepôt for drug traders and jihadis. The security and political establishment may need to tackle with more resolve the nexus that permits such easy access to criminals. For the beleaguered security forces and the stupefied ordinary people along the borders, this would have more utility than high-minded rhetoric at international forums.