India faces multiple security threats, Left Wing Extremism biggest threat: P Chidambaram

KOLKATA: India is facing multiple challenges to internal security with Left Wing Extremism posing a greater threat than terrorism, but the government is strengthening capacity to deal with the challenges, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram today said.

"In no other time has India faced multiple security challenges. We face infiltration in JK, Maoist and Naxalite problems in central India, several insurgent and separatist groups in Northeast and threat of terror from a number of groups," he told a special session of the Bharat Chamber of Commerce here.

Emphasising that terrorism is a major challenge to the country's security and sovereignty, he said Left Wing Extremism, however, posed a greater challenge than terrorism in terms of number of people killed in violence.

"Ten times more people are killed in LWE attacks than terrorism in the country," he said.

The government, however, was building capacity to tackle the challenges, he said adding, "Not a day passes when we are not adding a brick to India's internal security capacity. But it will take time."

Referring to recent White House document 'National Doctrine for Security', he said it has identified al-Qaeda as the only enemy as far as terrorism is concerned.

"It seems the US has only one enemy as far as terrorism is concerned. The whole document is on how to defeat al-Qaeda. That is the only challenge the US faces... But we face multiple security challenges. Within the limits of capacity, we will have to deal with all the challenges," he said.

Chidambaram said there were two planks to deal with the problem of extremism - development of the affected areas and improvement in law and order.

"Wherever development can take place, it should take place with the help of security forces. Wherever not, security forces should go and regain control of the regions. The process will take some years," he said.

Pointing out that the country's police-population ratio was among the lowest in the world, he stressed the need for raising it.

"There is no substitute for local police stations. No substitute for beat constables and no substitute for human intelligence," he said.

Although state governments had annually recruited an average of 92,000 constables over the past two and a half years and would recruit around 1,00,000 this year, there will be 5,00,000 vacancies even after recruiting nearly 3,00,000 constables, he said.

Pointing out that the Centre recruited only 36 IPS officers every year over the past four years, he said that 220 IPS officers, however, would be recruited this year. The same number would have to be maintained for seven years to reach the sanctioned strength of 4,300.

"We have to expand national (intelligence) grid, IB, CBI, NIA and RAW. Hopefully we will create the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC). All this will require fine leaders to be carefully chosen and trained," he said.

Chidambaram said there were also problems of training institutes, trainers, housing, barracks and money for buying equipment and uniforms.