The National Security Adviser is an oddity in the Parliamentary system, since he only owes accountability to his appointing authority, the Prime Minister. This further empowers the Prime Minister”s Office, detracting from India”s parliamentary democracy by making it resemble a presidential system.

Accounts of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Ajit Doval, as a man of action have only been reinforced by his response to the terrorist attack at the Pathankot airfield early this month. While a laudable quality in an operational-level commander, however, when this trait (to take action) is present in abundance in a person required to function at the strategic level, it may be problematic.

Perhaps, the most onerous responsibility of the NSA is his duty as Secretary to the Political Council of India’s Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) and as Chair of its executive council. The appointment requires a cool, reflective, person to tenant it. The Pathankot episode throws up the question: Whether Doval is the best man for this sensitive job.

On this score, the criticism attending the response to the Pathankot terror attack should not be spin-doctored into oblivion. The Prime Minister on a visit to the site, and the Army Chief in his Army Day press conference, have tried to restore confidence in the system. Acknowledging a few home truths would better serve the system.

A key point was brought forth by the previous NSA, Shivshankar Menon. He observed the cancellation of the NSA’s trip to China for strategic-level talks, implying this was an instance of misplaced priorities. Second, an NSA getting involved in essentially a tactical-level operation is liable to miss the wood for the trees. Third, the NSA’s bypassing of institutions such as the Home and Defence Ministries and the military serves to sap traditional chains of command and constitutionally ordained authority.

Since the NSA is at the fulcrum of India’s nuclear command and control, these observations have implications for India’s nuclear command and control.

India’s NCA already has glaring lacunae. As revealed in the commentary in the aftermath of the Pathankot episode, India’s National Security Council (NSC) system has been created through an executive order in 1998. It has not been institutionalised and sanctified by an Act of Parliament ever since. As a result, the NSA is an oddity in the parliamentary system, only owing accountability to his appointing authority, the Prime Minister. This further empowers the Prime Minister’s Office, detracting from India’s parliamentary democracy by making it resemble a presidential system.

The NSA serves as link between the Political Council of the NCA that comprises the Prime Minister and principal ministers, and the Executive Council, comprising of the significant officials, military chiefs and scientific heads. Even this responsibility of the NSA has no legislative authority underwriting it. The press release of January 3, 2003, from the Cabinet Committee on Security that met to operationalise India’s nuclear deterrence policy at best serves to inform. It cannot be taken as sanctioning this role of the NSA. The responsibility needs being invested with legal content.

The insertion of the NSA in the nuclear command loop is such as to act as a buffer between the political head and the military chiefs. To fulfil this function, the NSA has the support of the NSC Secretariat (NSCS), which is under the Deputy NSA and part of the PMO. The strategy programme staff that informs decision-making and implements nuclear deterrence and employment strategy is, however, not under him directly, but is in the NSCS.

The Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) commands the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) that is in charge of India’s crown jewels, its nuclear arsenal. The staff support of the Chairman COSC is the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff. Further, the Chairman COSC receives his marching orders not from the Prime Minister or Defence Minister, but the NSA. Since the Chairman COSC is himself double-hatted, also serving as head of his service, the NSA’s role assumes a greater significance. In effect, the general commanding the SFC is willy-nilly reporting to two heads: the bona fide military chain of command and the more significant, but civilian, NSA.

This reveals a structural problem in India’s nuclear command and control in which accountability is with the military, but the authority is with the NSA. Governments in this century, including the current one, have promised to create the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) or permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. A CDS, with executive teeth in the nuclear realm, would ensure convergence of accountability and authority. That the reconstitution of the dysfunctional National Security Advisory Board has been held up for close to a year now does not lend confidence on this score.

The deficiencies of this system are such as to preclude buffeting from the angularities of personalities. As demonstrated on other occasions such as the Special Forces operation in Myanmar in the middle of last year, the NSA has a tendency to join the action. Conflict will serve up temptations aplenty for him to roll up his sleeves. The NSA would be better advised to exercise considerable self-restraint and allow the national security institutions to work their mandate, to enable him to take a wide-angled view of crises and conflict. Servicing the NSC in a sober manner would enable him to give relevant inputs as the fulcrum of the NCA.

Ali Ahmed is the author of “India’s Doctrine

Puzzle: Limiting War in South Asia.”

Porous border, vulnerable forces

ON THE RADAR Dinanagar and Pathankot terror attacks have exposed Punjab’s 553-km border with Pakistan, bringing under scrutiny the nexus between drug smugglers and security personnel. State police and BSF are in self-correction mode, but more needs to be

CHANDIGARH: While two terror attacks in Punjab in the past six months have laid bare the gaping holes in the state’s 553-km-long border with Pakistan, the terrorists’ modus operandi has turned the spotlight on the nexus between drug smugglers and security personnel.

HT FILEBSF inspector general Anil Paliwal (centre) with 10-kg heroin recovered from a border outpost in Ferozepur in November last year.In March 2012, after years of a nonchalant approach towards the drug menace, the state government went cracking against drug smugglers and peddlers. The mandate to then director general of police Sumedh Singh Saini was to “identify and smash” the drug networks and their supply lines. The police top brass was instructed to entertain “zero political interference”.

SHADY DEALINGS

The drive revealed that the accusations of police-smuggler nexus were not unfounded. In two years (2013 and 2014), at least 70 personnel of the Punjab Police were found working in collusion with trans-border narcotic smuggling networks, as per police records.

Of them, 48 cops were summarily dismissed from service after their links with drug smugglers/peddlers surfaced. Another 19 policemen were arrested on similar charges. The dismissed officials included deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Dinesh Singh, against whom the charge was that he “misused his official position to promote drug trafficking.” Sub-inspector (SI) Kulwant Singh was sacked for having a “nexus with drug peddlers” while posted as the station house officer (SHO) at Kahnuwan (Gurdaspur district).

More than 57,000 peddlers and smugglers were arrested in 48,138 cases, leading to the seizure of 1,744 kg of heroin (from 2012 to September 2015).

“The state government adopted a zero-tolerance policy on drugs and gave clear directions to the police. As a result, the drug distribution network has been ruthlessly broken and transit lines of major Pakistan-based heroin cartels snapped in the past four years,” says Saini, who remained the state police chief from March 2012 to October 2015.

The clean-up drive helped the police bust international cartels, starting from one “Arif Mohammad alias Doctor” in Pakistan. The arrests have been indicative of the flourishing drug trade between Pakistan and Punjab. And, the drug smuggler-police-politician nexus is blamed for the easy availability of drugs in the state.

In border villages, enemy lurks within

PUNJAB-PAKISTAN BORDER: The white pillars that mark the international border between India and Pakistan stand bright in the fog, mute witness to the drug smuggling, and now terror, route to Punjab. Beyond the pillars, the mustard crop is in bloom in Pakistan, while the lush wheat fields provide the winter backdrop on the Indian side. A fortnight after the Pathankot terror attack on the airbase, a visit to Punjab’s border villages reveals a deceptive calm but disturbing truth that the enemy lurks within.

SAMEER SEHGAL/HTWhite pillars mark the Indo-Pak border amid farmers’ fields.On the surface, it’s difficult to miss the prosperity that families of farmers in Punjab’s border villages have seen over the past 15 years. Landholdings may have shrunk but trucks parked outside houses in villages located just a shout away from the border speak volumes about the easy money narcotic smuggling has brought.

The high number of drug addicts in these villages also reveals the misfortune that has befallen their residents.

Once into smuggling cloth material, opium and later gold from Pakistan, crossing the unfenced, and unguarded, border was like venturing into the neighbourhood for these families. In the past decade, however, they have taken to smuggling heroin. The contraband is smuggled from Afghanistan and Pakistan into India via J&K, Rajasthan and Punjab. A major part of the consignment is passed through Punjab, while some quantity of heroin is sold in the local market by couriers. The smuggling has been going on unchecked as it’s done with the tacit understanding of Punjab Police and politicians, at different levels, coupled with the lack of a modern surveillance system and inadequately deployed Border Security Force (BSF).

Now its just that Pakistan has begun pushing in terror with the narcotics, the Pathankot attack being the latest fallout.

‘EVERYONE IS A SUSPECT HERE’

Smuggling has is virtually a lucrative cottage industry in Punjab’s border belt. Despite the rising risks, villagers admit, it has helped build fortunes. The signs of prosperity are visible in villages such as Mahwa, Daoke, Naushera Dhalla, Havelian, Mehndipur and Rajatal.

But drug addicts can also be spotted easily. “Border villagers are into smuggling and the youth are in the grip of drugs. Everyone is a suspect here,” says Amandeep Singh of Mehndipur village, in the Khemkaran sector, surrounded on three sides by Pakistan.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

About 2 km from Mehndipur is Sehajrai village of Pakistan, considered the hotbed of heroin smugglers due to its proximity with the border. Border villagers own farm land across the barbed fence up to the pillars. They grow wheat and paddy in the fertile stretch on the Indian side, while their Pakistani counterparts plough land right up to the pillars.

At many places from Fazilka to Pathankot, the border criss-crosses in such a manner that the Pakistani farmers’ land is 50 metres from the Indian fence. Pushing heroin in small-sized packets is then just a throw away. There have been instances of police and BSF recovering Pakistani mobile phone SIM cards from Indian couriers. The border villages receive signals of Pakistan’s cellular networks such as Mobilink and Ofone.

When the crop is tall and ripe on both sides of the Radcliffe line, the border pillars are not visible. This is an advantage for Pakistani smugglers, who can easily hide amid wheat or paddy crop while venturing into Indian fields to push the poison into Punjab. And, there is no dearth of takers. “Before the border was fenced, Indian villagers could simply walk into villages in Pakistan that are a kilometre away,” says Labh Singh, 80, of Naushera Dhalla village. A former opium smuggler, he broke down and said with regret: “My son was into smuggling and was caught with fake currency and arms. He died in jail.”

BSF’S CHALLENGES

“Police and politicians encourage drug smuggling. Police harass the innocent. I have been detained many a time unnecessarily,” claims Suba Singh, a former sarpanch of Rajatal village, infamous for smugglers, even as another villager Kundan Singh, 90, reminds the former about his shady past.

Now, every family that owns farms across the fence is seen as a potential heroin smuggler in the garb of a farmer. This stigma doesn’t ruffle many. Smuggling, many admit, flows in their blood.

That’s one of the enormous challenges the BSF faces while guarding the 553-km border of Punjab. “The BSF ‘kisan (farmer) guards’ accompany peasants to their land across the fence. Many a time, we have recovered heroin hidden in farm appliances. It is not easy when you have to watch anti-national activities of those whom you are protecting,” says a senior BSF officer.

Hunt on for mastermind of trafficking ring in region

Apart from reports of Gurwinder Singh of Jaid village and Gurdeep Singh of Tandi Aulakh village being feared drowned, there has been no report of people missing from anywhere else in Punjab. There has been no confirmation of the incident as yet.
ARPIT SHUKLA, IG, Jalandhar zone-2

KAPURTHALA: With information on the Panama boat tragedy still scarce, the police claimed to have identified and booked the mastermind of the human trafficking gang of the region, 29-year-old Kapurthala native Samual alias Bunty. The department has also claimed that the two unregistered travel agents arrested on Monday worked to lure ‘unsuspecting and gullible youth’ for Samual and were paid between `1 lakh and `2 lakh for each ‘client’ they could muster.

“Samual is a native of Dayalpur village in Kapurthala and is absconding. He has been booked under sections 420 (cheating) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC and various sections of the Immigration Act. Raids are on to nab him,” said Arpit Shukla, inspector general (IG) of police, Jalandhar zone-2.

The police add that Kulwinder Singh Multani (52), a petrol station owner from Bhogpur (Jalandhar) — among the arrested on Monday — had enticed the youth by claiming that his own son Manpreet Singh had settled in the United States and was earning well there.

The second man arrested, Harbhajan Singh (65), a retired Haryana police employee from Bhatnura village (Kapurthala), also misused his influence to lure the youth, the police have claimed.

“Apart from two complaints of Gurwinder Singh (21) of Jaid village and Gurdeep Singh (25) of Tandi Aulakh village being feared drowned, there has been no other report of missing people from anywhere else in the state. There has been no confirmation of the incident as yet,” the IG added.

On Tuesday, police produced Multani, a resident of Bhogpur town in Jalandhar, in the local court which remanded him to two-day police remand.

Kapurthala deputy commissioner Daljit Singh Mangat and SSP along with other administration and police officials visited the houses of the victims in the district.

With no official confirmation coming through on the other victims, police sources said that some Jalandhar-based travel agents had hinted that the passengers on the boat could be from Pakistan Punjab.

BSF keeping tabs on its own personnel

ALANDHAR: After the Dinanagar and Pathankot terror strikes, fingers are being pointed at the Border Security Force (BSF) for its ‘failure’ to stop infiltration from across the Pakistan border and alleged connivance of some of its men with drug smugglers.

The force, tasked with guarding the border and preventing trans-national crime, has sacked and jailed seven of its personnel for colluding with the drug mafia, while 108 others have been shifted since 2011 due to suspicious activities, according to information available with the intelligence wing of the BSF’s Punjab frontier headquarters in Jalandhar.

Of these seven cases, four, including the recent arrest of a jawan by the police in SAS Nagar, were handed over to the state police for investigation, citing the involvement of civilians also.

BSF inspector general, Punjab frontier, Anil Paliwal says the intelligence and vigilance wings keep tabs on all personnel, especially those who belong to the smuggling-prone area, even during their leave period.

“Transfers are based on reports given by our intelligence wing about their activities or due to complaints regarding doubtful conduct,” he adds. Other BSF officers also reason that the transfers do not mean that these personnel were involved in any illegal activity on the border. Since 2014, the BSF has also adopted a policy not to offer the home district to any soldier or official. Postings are also not given in buffer districts (two nearby districts from both sides).

RECORD SEIZURE OF CONTRABAND

Notwithstanding the flak, the BSF has made the second biggest seizure of heroin and other narcotic drugs on the Indo-Pak border along Punjab in 2015 after setting a record in 2014. A total of 344-kg heroin was seized in 2015 as compared to 361 kg in the previous year.

Though repeatedly blamed by the Punjab government for drug smuggling, the record seizures, despite a drop in heroin production in Afghanistan as per a United Nations (UN) report, are seen by the paramilitary force as a positive sign.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” Paliwal said. As for intrusion, 21 smugglers and 15 intruders have been gunned down by the BSF since 2011. In addition, 122 Pakistani nationals were caught while crossing the border, mainly for the purpose of smuggling or spying.

“There has been no report of terrorists taking this route though. We have not had inputs on this for the past many years,” another BSF official told HT.

DRUG FLOW ACROSS THE FENCE

Security demands strategy before action