Indian Defence Review

The second pandemic wave is ravaging India and is yet to reach its peak – when no one knows. But K Vijaya Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government, recently proclaimed that the third wave is “inevitable”. Wonder if Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans have been intercepted or Raghavan found an eight-month old script that was to warn of the second wave that he forgot to announce.

However, it is more than certain that the second wave will continue to spread very fast which is not only because of vaccine and oxygen shortages but unchecked public behaviour defying Covid norms with the administration’s concurrence by design or default eyeing vote-banks. If Haridwar was in news earlier, witness the recent religious festivities in Ahmedabad and thronging of markets in Hyderabad, all covered by electronic media, not to talk of packed Goa resorts throwing caution to the winds in the greed for money.

While India combats the pandemic, which may go well into the next year or more, our adversaries, possibly assisted by indigenous accomplices, would find it the best time to mount terror attacks. After Prime Minister Imran Khan and his master Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa smoked the peace pipe briefly, Pakistan is back to its old antics. On May 3, 2021, Pakistan Rangers opened unprovoked firing in Ramgarh Sector of Samba District of Jammu and Kashmir. This ceasefire violation was after India and Pakistan agreed on February 25 this year to uphold the 2003 Ceasefire Agreement. Since Pakistan resorts to unprovoked firing to assist infiltration or divert attention from rabid rats tunneling into India, it is back to square one.

Have we noticed that India is already being subjected to indirect terrorism concurrent to the pandemic? Fake Remdesvir vaccine has been caught at different locations in India, while many times more may be in circulation or under manufacture. In one case a consignment of 2,73,70,000 fake Remdesvir vaccine vials has  been seized in Gujarat. Eight persons have been arrested and the factory reportedly busted. In another case, the Delhi Police has arrested two persons for selling fake Remdesvir vaccine. In the latter case, the source of these fake vials has not been reported but it would be prudent to acknowledge that these may not be the only sources where fake vaccines are being manufactured.

We must also accept that this is far worse and potent indirect terrorism than pumping in fake currency. Whether external forces are behind this already is not known but it certainly is a racket they would want to exploit. Also, while the pandemic is claiming mounting casualties and infections in Nepal, many opinions are veering towards the possibility of Chinese nationals bringing Covid mutants into India via Nepal. The government needs to look into this issue. Fake vaccines and mutants actually fit into China’s strategy of ‘Unrestricted Warfare’. Xi Jinping’s sympathetic phone call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi could well be to divert attention from all this. Was Hitler sympathetic to anyone other than Mussolini?  

A disturbing development is the seizure of 7.10 kg of Natural Uranium worth Rs 21.30 crore and arrest of two accused individuals (identified as Jigar Jayesh Pandya and Abu Tahir Afzal Hussain Choudhary) in Mharashtra. The seized Uranium has been sent to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at Trombay in Mumbai. According to media, the police received information on February 2, 2021, that Abu Tahir who is a scrap dealer was going to sell Uranium to Pandya. Accordingly, a trap was laid that led to the seizure and arrests. From where Tahir obtained the Uranium has not been revealed but this is an issue which must be followed up and leaks plugged.

In 2010, Cobalt-60, a radioactive material used to treat cancer, was found in the crap market of Mayapuri in New Delhi that caused the death of one labourer and grave injuries to three shopkeepers. In February 2010, Delhi University had sold a ‘Gamma Irradiator’ that had not been used for many years in an auction fetching Rs 1.5 lakh. This led to one of the worst radiation leaks in the country. Theft of a truck full of Cobalt-69 in Mexico in December 2013 and recovery of a Uranium mine in northeast India by the Army during 2014 are examples of inherent dangers of CBRN terrorism. Terrorist organizations, particularly the ISIS, have been developing CBRN capabilities, assisted by fissile material available in the black market. Toxic radioactive agents can be paired with conventional explosives and turned into a radiological weapon.  

US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan will encourage terrorists and their supporters to direct more terrorism towards India. If car bombs are going off in Afghanistan, Mohamed Nasheed, former Maldives President has just survived an assassination attempt in a bomb blast. Nasheed, a pro-democracy leader, was against Chinese investments in Maldives. The multitude of insurgencies and radical organizations supported internally and aided and abetted externally makes India an inviting asymmetric battlefield ready to be exploited.

Global radical and terrorist organizations have designs on India. There are indications that the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) supported by China-Pakistan want their international efforts to pick up momentum in early August in the run up to August 15. In November 2020, the Chief Minister of Punjab had met the Union Home Minister to apprise him of Pakistani activities to create disturbances in Punjab in concert with the agitation by farmers. The ironic part is that the SFJ movement is headquartered in the UK but the Boris Johnson Administration will do nothing to curtail their movement.

In an interview with media on January 30, 2021, the Chief Minister of Punjab cautioned the Centre to be extra vigilant in view of attempts by Pakistan trying to infiltrate the borders and sending weapons in increased numbers through drones since the beginning of the agitation by the farmers. He told media, “The Government should be on its toes. I have been warning them for a long time that Pakistan is trying to infiltrate the borders. Their weapons are coming in. They have sleeper cells here that they can awaken anytime they want. A disturbed Punjab suits Pakistan’s policies…It is drones that are bringing weapons in… We may capture 30 drones, but there are 20-30 that may get past us, to their objectives…. Why weapons, money, and heroine are coming in?”

Finally, it is reiterated that India has to be extra careful against possibility of terrorist attacks while combating the pandemic. And, it is not just Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab that can be targeted. Obviously, the intelligence agencies are working overtime. But in addition we must adopt the concept of putting on ground billion plus eyes for surveillance.