By Monish Gulati, IANS,
Two monks, a Myanmarese and a Tibetan, were injured in a coordinated terror attack at Bodh Gaya in Gaya district of Bihar on July 7. Bihar Police confirmed that 10 low-intensity serial bombings occurred between 5.30 and 5:58 a.m. at and around the Mahabodhi temple site. Another three bombs were defused. The bombs had been placed at virtually all places of significance, including the Bodhi tree, in the temple complex spread over an area of 12 acres. The incident, before it joins the growing record of solved/unsolved terror attacks in India, needs to be revisited simply for the unnerving ineffectiveness of the response of the politico-security establishment.
According to Ajai Sahni, executive director, South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), “rarely has precedent intelligence been as specific as it was in the case of the threat to the Mahabodhi temple”. Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives, arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell in September-October 2012, had revealed during interrogation that Dilsukhnagar in Hyderabad and the Mahabodhi temple had been reconnoitered by them as likely targets. The Delhi Police Special Cell accordingly warned Bihar’s Director General of Police and the Superintendent of Police, Gaya. The reliability of the advisory and the likelihood of an attack on the Mahabodhi temple were reinforced on Feb 21, 2013, when twin bombs went off at Dilsukhnagar, killing 17 people.
To the credit of the Bihar Police, after receiving the intelligence advisory in October 2012, a platoon of the Special Task Force (STF) was deployed at the Mahabodhi temple on a permanent basis as per media reports. It is not confirmed whether this STF comprised of the Special Auxiliary Police (SAP), which has ex-army men, and had been constituted to assist Bihar Police against organised crime and Maoists. Additional security measures, including installation of CCTV cameras in and around the temple, round-the-clock patrolling by the police on Gaya-Dobhi and Gaya-Falgu roads and deployment of women police at the temple for frisking women pilgrims, were put in place. Also, a control room was to be set up at the Bodh Gaya police station located adjacent to the Mahabodhi temple to monitor activities and coordinate security.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) too had warned the Bihar government twice over the past three months that Bodh Gaya was on the target of terrorist groups and provided sketches of two suspects just a fortnight before the attack. The DIG of Police, Magadh range consequently reviewed the security arrangements with the Bodh Gaya Temple Management Committee (BTMC) a few days before the bombings. Despite the fact that the entire police security procedure was followed in the days leading up to the incident, the terror attack took place, and as per last reports, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was probing the bomb attacks from the international, Maoist and communal angles.
The Mahabodhi Temple is claimed as property of the Bihar government and under the terms of the Bodh Gaya Temple Act of 1949, the state government makes itself responsible for the protection, management and monitoring of the temple and its properties in conjunction with the BTMC. It would be pertinent to mention that Mahabodhi temple being an important religious and tourist attraction is a source of revenue for the state.
The security arrangements at the Mahabodhi temple included 16 guards in shifts within the temple premises provided by a private security company, COBRA, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., when the temple is open to the public. At night, personnel of the BTMC provided security outside the temple, while the Bihar Police was responsible for guarding the periphery of the temple. The CCTV cameras in the temple complex were functional. However, their footage was not monitored in real-time, especially during the night when there were no security personnel inside the temple complex. This arrangement passed the security review by the DIG police. The services of the private security company have since been terminated by the BTMC for breach of contract for 24-hour surveillance.
Examination of the three unexploded bombs revealed that small LPG cylinders had been used as containers to pack explosives, suspected to be a mix of ammonium nitrate, potassium and sulphur. Investigations are on as to how the terrorists managed to carry 12 IEDs, each weighing nearly four kgs, inside the temple complex placed on high security alert. In the meanwhile, two kg gas cylinders have been banned in the state.
The chief minister of the state for once could not offer the now clichéd reply of lack of intelligence warnings and paucity of central security forces, though his request for Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) protection for Bodh Gaya tended to hint towards the latter. What he did not explain was why the forces available with the state for dealing with an escalated security threat; the Bihar Military Police (BMP) and the centre-supported India Reserve Battalion (IRB) were not deployed. The BMP is the state armed police force for Bihar and has been expanding since 2006 to deal with the Maoist insurgency. Gaya has a BMP battalion located in the district. The security of Mahabodhi temple has now been taken over by the BMP from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which had been deployed at the shrine immediately after the serial blasts.
Even the home minister’s reply on CISF security for Bodh Gaya muddied the situation. He said that protection for religious places is not under the CISF Act and similar requests from the Jama Masjid and the Shirdi Sai Baba temple were pending. Had he seen the Mahabodhi temple as a World Heritage site rather than a religious place he would have found a precedent in the Taj Mahal, which has been provided CISF protection as a national monument. There are 30 Indian properties inscribed on the World Heritage List. Mahabodhi Temple Complex at Bodh Gaya( 2002) and Buddhist monuments at Sanchi (1989) are the two World Heritage Sites in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.
The incident raises key questions on the ability of the local law enforcement agencies, the cutting edge, in responding to terror threats even when actionable intelligence is available. The issues of police reform and augmenting the capacity (qualitative and quantitative) of the local police have been debated ad nauseum after every terror attack. The internal security situation in the country will increase the demand for physical security and, given government constraints, private security is the way forward. Bodh Gaya shows that there is a crying need for professionalisation of these services.
Possibly the most worrisome bit of information in the media about the Bodh Gaya bombings was that local police officials believed that terrorists would not carry out terror acts in the state – the Bodh Gaya blasts were the first terror incident in Bihar – because it was their preferred route to Mumbai and other places from Nepal/Bangladesh and they would not like to invite extra police attention by triggering bomb attacks there.
(Monish Gulati is a research fellow with the Society for Policy Studies. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted ate can be contacted at [email protected])