National Security Guard Director (NSG) General M.A. Ganapathy said on Thursday that in the wake of the terror attack in Israel, India needs to have a crisis management response framework at the national level on extreme terrorist scenarios. He said despite the technological advancements, it is the man and weapon which make the final difference.
The chief of the elite counter-terror and counter-hijack force said that scale and proportion of the unprecedented terror attack in Israel would never have been envisaged as the terrorists could get under the radar of extremely sophisticated technological infrastructure and perpetrated the ghastly act.
“There are two lessons to be learnt here. We need to have a framework of crisis management response at the national level on extreme terrorist scenarios and while the reliance on technology is imperative, it has to be complemented by highly skilled personnel who are at the pinnacle of their craft. We need to constantly invest in the skill upgradation of our personnel who are the ultimate redeemers in a terrorist response mechanism, ultimately it is the man and the weapon which make the final difference,” Mr. Ganapathy said.
He was speaking at the inaugural session of the Counter Terrorism Seminar with State Special Forces on the occasion of NSG’s Raising Day celebration.
An Israel Defence Force (IDF) official, who was expected to speak at the conference on the subject ‘Drones and Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) in rural and urban scenarios’, cancelled the presentation as he returned to Israel following the terror attack by Hamas, that has claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people. Around 900 people have been killed in neighbouring Gaza strip in retaliatory attack by Israeli forces.
The officer said that although NSG is predominantly an urban anti-terror force it has also raised a jungle warfare taskforce that has been deployed in certain operations.
He said that NSG is in the process of developing a national level IED data management system to facilitate national and select international partners dealing with IEDs to be connected and share relevant inputs.
Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral R. Hari Kumar, who was the chief guest at the seminar said that there are 13 major and minor sea ports which handle 95% volume of the foreign trade. “The trade is facilitated by over 51,000 vessels comprising 14% of the global sea farers, which are registered. Other than this there a large number of small boats, dhows and many other types of vessels are quite large. Identification or classification of non-traditional threats is a daunting task,” Adm Kumar said.
He added that the GSAT-7 satellite helped share real time imagery with other agencies.
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