Vulnerability of India�s coastline

Article Submitted to National Maritime Foundation by M Shamsur Rabb Khan

Vulnerability of India�s coastline
By M Shamsur Rabb Khan
The infiltration of dreaded terrorists via sea route who have carried out unprecedented terror attacks in Mumbai�s Taj and Trident-Oberoi hotels and elsewhere has once again points to the sheer vulnerability of India�s 7,516-km coastline, especially the western coastal areas that touch Gujarat and Maharashtra. The terrorists landed in the Sasoon dock in Mumbai via the sea route from Karachi, using Kuber, a private Indian fishing trawler from Porbandar in Gujarat, which went missing on November 14, and which was found abandoned some five nautical miles off the Mumbai coast. Since ships are intercepted and checked by the Navy and the Coast Guard along the coastline from Mumbai to Gujarat, this serious lapse raises concern over the coastal security mechanism of the country.

Even more disturbing is the fact that on November 18, RAW passed on a specific advisory to the Coast Guard, which serves as the lead intelligence agency for the coastal area. The advisory asked the coast guard to intensify patrolling and look out for a suspicious vessel, probably of Pakistani origin, which had sailed off from Karachi. The coast guard found a Global Positioning System (GPS), a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) developed by the US Department of Defense, which uses a constellation of between 24 and 32 Medium Earth Orbit satellites that transmit precise microwave signals, which enable GPS receivers to determine their current location, the time, and their velocity was found abandoned on the fishing trawler that was drifting nearly four nautical miles off the coast of Mumbai early on November 27 morning, several hours after the terrorist attack began. The GPS recovered from the abandoned Kuber had two maps fed into it to aid navigation: one was a route from Karachi that was plotted quite close to the Indian coast, the second, was a return route mapped from the Mumbai coast back to Karachi. This clearly points to the fact that there was some help from people with a naval or army background, and had extensive knowledge of navigation at sea.

Time and again, warning of terror infiltration through Indian waters have been issued, yet vulnerability remains as ever. In 2006, the Home Ministry had warned of terror groups using the sea route to strike at vital installations in India but nothing much seems to have been done about it. The Ministry cautioned that the possible game plan of terrorists could include capturing un-inhabited islands off the country's coastline and using them as launching pads for terror strikes on oil refineries in coastal areas. Exactly two years later, the country's most audacious terror attack in Mumbai on 26 November night is quite baffling as to how terrorists entered the city with a huge quantity of arms and ammunition and wrecked mayhem.

In January 2007, at the International Maritime Security Conference held in New Delhi, the Defence Minister A K Antony warned that India's vast coastline was "vulnerable" as interests "inmical" to it were eyeing penetration through these areas to destabilize the country. In May 2007, the Defence Minister informed Parliament that there were terrorists of various tanzeems (groups) being trained abroad and warned of the likelihood of these being infiltrated through sea routes. In March 2008, the Defence Minister cautioned against dangers of terror attacks from the sea in the region and called for greater international vigil to ward off these threats.

Global intelligence agencies have also been warning of terror attacks through the sea route, yet concrete measures are missing though Union Home Ministry formulated a comprehensive plan of action in 2006 when it launched the Coastal Security Scheme (CSS) to enhance India's coastal security by strengthening infrastructure for patrolling and surveillance. To this end, it envisaged setting up 73 coastal police stations, 58 outposts, 97 check-posts, and 30 barracks in the coastal areas aided with 204 boats, 149 jeeps, and 312 motorcycles for increasing mobility of the police personnel on the coasts and in close coastal waters. The CSS also focused on closer coordination among the Indian Navy, Indian Coast Guard and Coastal Police in patrolling the coastline. About 50 of the 73 approved coastal police stations had already been made operational. With an outlay of Rs.400 crore for non-recurring expenditure, an additional Rs.151 crore for recurring expenditure like fuel, maintenance and repair of vessels, including training of personnel, was approved. Out of this, an outlay of Rs.329.52 crore for setting up the coastal police stations and equipping them with vessels, vehicles and other facilities had been approved.

However, as against 50 coastal police stations for Gujarat, for example, just 10 are operating in the state, and a mere 250 trained police personnel of the state are doing the job of guarding the entire 1,600-km-long coast as against the required strength of about 1,500 such trained personnel. This is certainly a huge gap that needs to be fulfilled sometime in near future, given the vulnerability of the sea-route for terror infiltration. Along with sustained security measures to secure the land areas against infiltration by militants, India faces the challenges of addressing the vulnerability of its coastline. The coastal areas in the western region have been more sensitive and intelligence agencies have voiced concern over the influx of Taliban-style militants into Indian states like Gujarat and Maharashtra. These coastal routes coupled with the land border along Nepal and Bangladesh are the most preferred routes of terrorists to infiltrate and smuggle in arms and explosives into Indian territory.

Coastal vigilance becomes all the more significant in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea due to growing terror network in Pakistan that use Karachi-Mumbai or any other place in the western coastline to unleash terror in the country. Moreover, since Maldives is also fast becoming a hub for terror activities, militant groups are able to infiltrate the South Indian cities via sea routes. Intelligence reports suggest that the LTTE is using Maldives to ferry arms, run drug-smuggling activities, and send illegal migrants to work as spies. The emergence of the `Sea Tigers' in 1994 as a credible fighting force in India's maritime neighbourhood was a serious threat that led to the dangers of maritime terrorism. The suspected Laskar-e-Toiba terrorists, who fought for more than fifty hours with NSG in Mumbai echoes the Black Sea Tigers, the suicide squad of the naval wing of LTTE comprising highly motivated young men and women.

Sea patrolling, no doubt, is a daunting challenge to security personnel, and an identification of the existing loopholes in India's coastal security can prove to be a valuable starting point towards addressing the same. While the Navy usually operates on the high seas and the coast guard patrols Indian waters between 10 and 30 nautical miles from the coast, the area from the coastline to 10 nautical miles is left largely unpatrolled. This unpatrolled zone has a high density presence of boats and vessels, which can ferry weapons to the shore and easily offload consignments on land. Another problem is the issue of apprehending the culprits in the event of a chase, since the vessels that the Indian Navy and Coast Guard use make it difficult for them to chase small and fast boats in shallow waters.

With a major chunk of the focus directed towards Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeastern states, for decades, Indian coasts remained vulnerable to infiltration by militants. It may be recalled that the Palk Strait � the narrow strip of water that separates India from Sri Lanka � had been exploited to ferry arms and explosives from across the Arabian Sea that were used in the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993.

A big reason for enhancing coastal security is the safety of nuclear, oil and gas installations that are established all along the coastline. Some of the sensitive installations along the coast that are believed to have repeatedly figured in intelligence reports as likely terrorist targets include the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in Mumbai, the Kalpakkam nuclear power plant near Chennai, the Bombay High offshore oil facility, the Chandipur-at-Sea missile-testing range in Orissa, and the Equatorial Rocket Launching Station at Thumba and Goa shipyard. These concerns were voiced by Home Minister Shivraj Patil at a conference attended by top police officials in New Delhi last year when he pointed out that some Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives were being trained specifically for the sabotage of India's oil installations.

Besides, since the sea accounts for 90 per cent of India's trade by volume, the safety of Indian waters is all the more crucial. For example, between April and December 2007, India's total imports and exports stood at Rs.1,000,000 crores. India's growing trade, booming economy and investments in shipping and ports clearly demonstrate the importance of maritime security and the influence it wants to exert through peace time policing of the ocean. The Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sureesh Mehta described the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) as the de facto home of global terrorism where many regional states covertly or even overtly aid and abet subversive elements.

Though the US Admiral Alfred T. Mahan once said whoever controls the Indian Ocean will dominate Asia, much seems to be done to secure India�s coastline and sea waters from the dangers of terrorists. The Indian Ocean, the third largest Ocean in the World with an area of 73,500,000 sq. km or 28,350,500 sq. miles, forms two large indentations in the Southern coast of Asia � the Arabian Sea in the West and the Bay of Bengal in the East. An estimated 15.5 million barrels of oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz each day making it by far the world's most important oil choke point and 10 million barrels of oil is transported through the Malacca Strait.

The Indian Coast Guard has been playing a vital role in ensuring safety of life at Sea not only in the vast Indian Search and Rescue Region that extends over four million square kilometers, but also in adjoining Search and Rescue Regions whenever requested for assistance by the neighbouring countries. Yet, this terror infiltration through sea route throws a fresh challenge to the various security forces as to how it will plan to secure our coastlines. Surely, the intensification of the security of coastal areas can be actualized through proper implementation of CSS as soon as possible; else such terror attacks may hit India again.

Total words = 1,716
Author = M Shamsur Rabb Khan

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