Other Domestic Threats to our Internal Security

(a) Terrorism

The United Kingdom Terrorism Act, 2000, defines Terrorism as the ‘use of or a threat of action’ designed to influence the Government or to intimidate the public for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

  • Terrorism in India began with the state sponsorship of terrorism in Kashmir by Pakistan to settle scores with India in the context of losing three wars it fought with India as well as to avenge the loss of Bangladesh to Pakistan. However, with the Babri Masjid demolition and the consequent communal riots, terrorism began to expand and which included Mumbai bomb blasts in 1993.
  • Terrorism in India has become a home-grown phenomenon. Mumbai bomb blasts in 1993, Coimbatore bomb blasts in 1998, Delhi bomb blasts in 2005, Varanasi bomb blasts in 2006, Malegaon bomb blasts in 2006, Hyderabad bomb blasts in 2007 and Mumbai terror attack in 2008, Pathankot attack are few of the examples of the terror attacks in India.

AFSPA

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was enacted in 1958 to bring under control what the government of India considered ‘disturbed’ areas. The Act has often faced flak from human rights groups as it gave sweeping powers and immunity to the army in conflict-ridden areas.

  • Tripura withdrew the AFSPA in 2015.
  • Jammu and Kashmir too has a similar Act.
  • It is effective in the whole of Nagaland, Assam, Manipur (excluding seven assembly constituencies of Imphal) and parts of Arunachal Pradesh.
  • The Centre revoked it in Meghalaya on April 1, 2018. Earlier, the AFSPA was effective in a 20 km area along the Assam-Meghalaya border.
  • In Arunachal Pradesh, the impact of AFSPA was reduced to eight police stations instead of 16 police stations and in Tirap, Longding and Changlang districts bordering Assam.

(b) Organised Gangs

India has organized crime syndicates like the mafia gangs of Mumbai whose sole aim is to amass wealth by spreading terror posing a threat to internal security.

  • The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act of 1999 defines organized crime as any continuing unlawful activity by an individual, singly or jointly, either as a member of an organised crime syndicate or on behalf of such syndicate, by use of violence or threat of violence or intimidation or coercion, or other unlawful means, with the objective of gaining pecuniary benefits, or gaining undue economic or other advantage for himself or any other person or promoting insurgency.
  • These gangs spread not only terror and panic among the people through contract killings, extortions kidnapping but also involve themselves in drug smuggling, gun running, money laundering and occasionally providing logistic support to the terrorists which pose a grave danger to peace and internal security in India.

Lesser Incidences

The last four years have seen an unprecedented improvement in the LWE scenario across the country. An overall 20% reduction in violent incidents (1136 to 908) and 33.8% reduction (397 to 263) in LWE related deaths in 2017 as compared to 2013 has been reported. In comparison to 2016, the year 2017 saw a decline of 13.4% (1048 to 908) in incidents of violence and 5.4% (278 to 263) in resultant deaths. At the same time, the developmental outreach by the Government of India has resulted in an increasingly large number of LWE cadres shunning the path of violence and returning to the mainstream.

Chhattisgarh (373 incidents and 130 deaths) remains the worst affected State followed by Jharkhand (251 incidents and 56 deaths), Bihar (99 incidents and 22 deaths), Odisha (81 incidents and 29 deaths) and Maharashtra (69 incidents and 16 deaths).

(c) Communal Problem

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich said Napoleon Bonaparte. True it might be, but religion has become a justification for mass murders and genocides based on religious faith. Blindness for one faith has bludgeoned the humanity within man. And, man has erased the difference between human and inhuman in the name of his religion. India has seen the communal riots of every kind with the Hindu-Muslim violence in the pre-Partitioned India to Sikh-Muslim riots during partition to anti-Christian and anti-Hindu violence.

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