Agencies groping to find solutions for countering IEDs: NSG DG

Security agencies dealing with the menace of IEDs and similar local bombs, which claimed 75 lives in the country last year, are still "groping" to obtain suitable gadgets and machines to detect their presence and triggering mechanisms, a top security official today said.
"There have been many claims on what technology is available for these Improvised Explosive Devices threats...What they (technology) can do and cannot do. But the industry has not been able to give the forces suitable equipments and neither the technology to combat these....We are still groping (in this regard)," NSG Director General J N Choudhury said during a counter-IED conference held by the 'black cat' commandos force here.

The NSG is the national repository for analysing and studying all types of bomb blasts and attacks carried out by IEDs.
He also flagged the "contentious" issue of regulating the sale and distribution of electronic detonators used for mining and similar operations in the country, which are also used to trigger IED blasts.
"All IED blasts that occurred last year in the country were conducted by the use of electronic detonators. It is desirable to restrict and regulate their use. It is not possible to have a blanket ban on its usage as it is used in mining but there has to be a federal policy on this," he said.

The legal regime, he said, to regulate usage of electronic detonators needs to be made more "rigorous."

The National Security Guard (NSG) chief rued that a number of state police forces do not have the "basic equipment" to counter IEDs.
India, however, witnessed a decline in the number of IED blast-related fatalities last year as during 2014, 75 people were killed in 190 such incidents, while in 2013 these numbers stood at 130 killed in 112 incidents.
IEDs remain a "weapon of choice" for elements like Naxals, extremists and terrorists to perpetrate violence, Choudhury said.