Even as it ruled out the use of regular army units in the flush-out operation against Naxalite groups, the government on Tuesday said special forces of the army might be brought in for surgical strikes, if required.
Speaking at the ?Idea Exchange? programme at The Indian Express today, home minister P Chidambaram said the government intended to fight Naxalite groups with only para-military forces and state police and there was no plan to involve the army.
?But, it may become necessary to induct special forces of the army, like the para-commandos, to supplement the efforts of para-military and state police. If such a need is felt, we might consider that,? Chidambaram said.
A major assault against Naxalite groups, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the gravest threat to India?s internal security, is in the offing towards the end of the year. With central para-military forces already over-stretched, there had been reports that the government might call in the army to quell the Naxal upsurge.
Chidambaram also spoke about the controversy around the Ishrat Jehan encounter case and said that the Centre?s affidavit in the Gujarat High Court ? which the state government had been using to justify the killing of the four alleged terrorists ? would have been ?different? had he gone through it himself.
?I would have ensured that there was no room in the affidavit for the state government to use it as a shield to cover up its own mistake,? Chidambaram said, adding that he would also have made sure that the affidavit was shared with the Gujarat government before being filed in the court.
The encounter in 2004, in which Ishrat Jehan and three others were killed by the Gujarat Police, was described as fake by a judicial commission last month. The Gujarat government sought refuge in the Centre?s affidavit in the case, arguing that the police had only acted on the intelligence provided by the Home Ministry on the suspected terror links of the four victims.
On Pakistan?s continued reluctance to take action against Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafeez Saeed, who India sees as the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks, Chidambaram said there was not much New Delhi could do about it apart from ?relentlessly pursuing? it with the Pakistani establishment.
?I can only see the tunnel. I cannot see the end of it,? he said when asked whether there was any hope on Pakistan acting against Saeed. ?We will continue to follow the procedures of law. We are hoping that someone in Pakistan would wake up to the fact that they have to observe internationally accepted rules of law and start investigations into the leads provided by India.?
Asked whether India would ask for access to investigate the case on Pakistani territory, Chidambaram said it was of no use. ?When they have denied access to the FBI, which is legally obliged to investigate the killing of every American anywhere in the world, would they give access to us??
Speaking about the efforts being made to enhance India?s capabilities to fight terror, Chidambaram said a separate intelligence wing was being created in the National Investigating Agency, set up in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks to probe crimes having inter-state or international ramifications like terror, money laundering or narcotics smuggling.
