IC 814: When India’s National Security Management Failed Completely

A still from 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack', which has pushed the hijacking into daily news. The Wire

The critical failure of response to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 occurred at the Raja Sansi Airport in Amritsar. Of course, the eventual and humiliating dénouement at Kandahar can also be faulted on a number of grounds, the most obvious being the manifest loss of nerve on the part of the government’s negotiators. However, little is still publicly known about the actual circumstances, negotiations and transactions at Kandahar, and it would, perhaps, be both unfair and unwise to judge the government’s crisis responses on the basis of the fitful and often inaccurate information that is currently available. The debacle at Amritsar, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish, and although government sources have sought to project the “decision” to allow the hijacked plane to leave Raja Sansi Airport as a reasoned option – the best of a bad bargain that could easily have ended in a bloodbath for the hostages – this is far from the case. I had, at the time of the hijack crisis, repeatedly described the events at Amritsar as an unforgivable blunder that divested us of all effective options, and I have seen no evidence till date to force a revision of this opinion.

The fact is, the failures at Amritsar – and a majority of these emanated from New Delhi – were entirely avoidable and exemplify in extraordinary measure the institutional collapse that encounters each sudden or unforeseen crisis of internal security (indeed, perhaps, of governance at large) in India. In the absence of a credible or detailed public disclosure by the government, consequently, it is useful to trace out the sequence of events, on that fateful Christmas Eve, as we know them.

4:52 pm: Delhi Air Traffic Control (ATC) receives a message from ATC Varanasi that the Airbus-300 plying on the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 has been hijacked.

4:56 pm: Confirmation is received when the pilot flashes the hijack code to the Delhi ATC. At this point of time radar information placed the plane over Lucknow. The Captain, D. Sharan, then makes radio contact and informs ATC that the hijackers are armed and their destination is Lahore. The information is communicated to the Crisis Management Group (CMG) comprising senior officials including the Cabinet Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Civil Aviation Secretary. Reports suggest that there was some delay in informing the CMG because telephone numbers had not been updated at the Delhi airport. The officials were also apparently unclear about what to do once they were contacted.

What the CMG actually did for the next hour is uncertain and crucial to any analysis of the response. The Prime Minster who was flying back from Patna to Delhi was informed only at 5:20 p.m., after he landed. He reached his residence at 5:35 p.m. and summoned a meeting of his Cabinet colleagues. The CMG had still not assembled – its meeting reportedly convened shortly before 6:00 p.m. An hour had already been wasted without any action taken by the Government or any of its agencies.

5:40 pm: the plane approaches Delhi. Reports indicate that though the pilot had said that he was heading for Lahore, he was already trying to ensure that he landed at Amritsar. He brought the Airbus’ speed down to 360-390 knots, well below the normal speed of around 460 knots. There is a certain point on the flight plan, point Ansari, where a pilot has to commit himself to heading either for Lahore or Amritsar. A Lahore bound flight veers left while the Amritsar bound flight must head right. The pilot, it was evident at this point, was trying to delay this decision.

A still from ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’. The Wire

A crucial fact in this context is that, from the time it was hijacked barely 20 minutes into the flight, till it landed in Amritsar, the plane was tracked closely on radar, its speed was known and a fair estimation of the amount of fuel remaining at the time it landed in Amritsar should have been available to the CMG, and should have been communicated to the authorities at Amritsar. The apparent failure to make these basic calculations available to decision makers at various levels had a crucial bearing on the subsequent response of the authorities.

6:15 pm: The plane reaches point Ansari and the pilot chooses to turn towards Amritsar.

6:18 pm: ATC Amritsar is first contacted by the pilot, “We are in contact with Opla (Lahore). Opla is not allowing us to land and we have only 40 minutes fuel. They are insisting us to go to Opla (sic) and they are not allowing us to land in Indian soil.”

6:26 pm: Pilot informs ATC again, “We have fuel only for half-an-hour. Please coordinate with Opla. Please get us permission to land at Opla. They are very silly and they will kill us one by one.”

6:31 pm: Pilot says that they have selected ten people to kill.

6:32 pm: Pilot says, “There is only 15 minutes of fuel left over. With this we can remain 15 minutes in the air. After that we don’t have fuel. Make sure we land in Opla as they want to land in Opla and otherwise not anywhere in India.”

Clearly, the pilot was doing all he could to make sure the plane landed at Amritsar. He had made a choice that the ATC could interpret by observing the radar, even as he played along with the hijackers. From the transcript it is clear that more attention should have been paid to the accuracy of the information he was giving to decipher any subtext or signals he was sending, particularly with regard to the fuel remaining in the plane. Certainly, it should have been clear that what the pilot was mouthing was not to be taken at face value.

Specifically, at 6:18 pm, he said he had 40 minutes of fuel left, at 6:31 pm he claimed to have only 15 minutes of fuel left. In 13 minutes he had supposedly lost 25 minutes of fuel. The plane finally landed at 7:01 pm, half-an-hour after the pilot said he had only 15 minutes of fuel left. It should have been clear that his words were not reflecting, and were not intended to reflect, the true picture regarding the amount of fuel in the plane.

6:35 pm: The aircraft is now hovering over the Raja Sansi Airport, Amritsar, a full one hour and forty three minutes after the first report of the hijack was received by ATC Delhi. But even now, no clear response systems have been activated. It bears mentioning, here, that Amritsar had been the final or transitional destination of a majority of the twelve Indian commercial aircraft hijacked in the past, and should have been the most obvious and probable destination in the present case. While all airports within the flight capabilities of the hijacked aircraft should have been alerted for possible landing and response, Amritsar should have been in a state of high alert, with a clear Emergency Command and Communications system in place. As will be evident from the sequence of events below, this was far from the case.

By this time, the Prime Minister’s personal secretary Brajesh Mishra had finally joined the deliberations of the CMG at Delhi. Throughout this period, and the next hour or so, it is unclear what the PM and the Cabinet were doing.

7:01 pm: The plane landed and contact was established on the ground with the pilot. At this point the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), the district’s Deputy Commissioner (DC), officials from the Border Security Force (BSF) as well as Inspector General of Police J.P. Birdi had reached the control tower. Airport Director V.S. Mulekar and senior aerodrome officer, Tarlok Singh, were already present there and Mulekar was the man who subsequently handled most of the communications with the aircraft. Two hours and nine minutes had passed since the authorities in Delhi were first informed of the hijacking. Clear indications had also been available for 45 minutes that the pilot was aiming to land the plane at Amritsar.

The plane landed on Tarmac 34 and came to a halt mid-way on the runway. The area is not well lit and is very far from the floodlit apron area of the airport. Visibility from the cockpit, officials confirm, would have been no more than 150 metres at best. The pilot conveyed the demand that the plane should be refuelled immediately, else the hijackers would start killing passengers. He also sent a coded message informing ATC that there were 5 hijackers on board. A message was also sent to Delhi asking for instructions. Reporters spotted Tarlok Singh outside the airport building, making preparations for refuelling.

To answer the question regarding what went wrong at Amritsar, we must begin with an inquiry on who was in charge. The State Crisis Management Committee (CMC), which included DGP Sarabjit Singh and IGP (Intelligence) M.P.S. Aulakh, was communicating with IG Commandos, J.P. Birdi who, in the absence of the zonal IG was asked to take charge. The Deputy Commissioner, is in the normal course of such a crisis, the man responsible for dealing with and authorising any action. He seems to have played virtually no role from here on. In addition to the SSP, the DIG Amritsar was also present.

7:05 pm: A man claiming to be G.Lal from the “Home Department” called up and asked about the situation at Amritsar. This man called once again with the same question. Who this person was is still to be established. However, contrary to some newspaper reports, airport officials confirm that he gave no instructions regarding how the officials at the spot should tackle the problem.

7:10 pm: The first contact between Amritsar and Delhi takes place, when the Cabinet Secretary calls up and speaks to the SSP. No specific instructions are issued, but the SSP is told to delay refuelling and ensure the plane does not take-off without the CMG’s instructions. A short while later, Brajesh Mishra also speaks to the DIG and tells him that an all out efforts should be made to prevent the aircraft from taking-off.

At this point, however, it is already clear that no one person was in charge at the ATC, Amritsar. The Cabinet Secretary was instructing the SSP, the PM’s Principal Secretary was speaking to the DIG, the State DGP to the IG. The man actually talking to the pilots was the Airport Director V.S. Mulekar.

A still from the Netflix series ‘IC 814’. The Wire

One source of confusion was certainly the lack of proper communication facilities at the airport. The ATC had no STD line to contact Delhi, and the mobile phones belonging to police officials were used to contact Delhi. Delhi may well have responded through the same channel. This is a confusion that could, and should, have been easily sorted out. It was not cleared up to the very end of the crisis. An official present at the ATC tower throughout the time when the plane was approaching and present at Amritsar clearly admitted that no one person was in charge. Specifically asked whether Birdi was handling things, he said, “He was present there, I wouldn’t say that he was in-charge.”

It should also be stressed that while subsequently defending their failure to prevent the plane from taking-off, the CMG and the State authorities cited various reasons – all of which had been conjured up after the event. Officials present at the ATC confirmed that, during the 48 minutes that the plane was at the Airport, no option to prevent its take-off was discussed by the officials at the ATC, and no specific directions were received from the superior authorities – specifically, the State CMC or the CMG at Delhi.

At this point it is also necessary to examine the rationale for delaying refuelling. All subsequent indications show that once the Indian Oil bowser had actually approached the plane, far more options would have been available to the ATC. The first was simply because of a fact that emerged in the media several days after the hijack, but which was known immediately to the authorities – that the airport lacked the proper ladder for refuelling an Airbus as no plane of this make currently lands at Amritsar. This in itself would have been sufficient reason in dallying over refuelling and there is no way the plane could have taken-off with the bowser connected to the plane.

The second is that the very mechanism that allows for the refuelling of a plane also allows its “de-fuelling”, that is, the extraction of fuel from the tank. Once the bowser was in place, it could simply have dried out, and consequently immobilised, the plane.

In the aftermath, with the local and state authorities blaming the CMG, and the CMG returning the favour, it is also clear that once the Cabinet Secretary and the PM’s Principal Secretary contacted officials in the control room, the local authorities immediately assumed a passive role. They were passing on information and awaiting instructions. In fact, just before the Cabinet Secretary called, the authorities were making preparations for refuelling – the only active decision they took during these 48 minutes. Existing evidence suggests a total lack of co-ordination between the State CMC at Chandigarh, the CMG at Delhi, and the officers present in the ATC – the last of whom were at the cutting edge of whatever action plan was devised. There is also some evidence that different officers at the ATC were separately receiving instructions from the CMG and the State CMC, and that there was no co-ordination of this information with the officers actually negotiating with the hijackers.

6:45 pm: Pilot first informs the ATC that the hijackers are armed with revolvers, AK-47 and grenades.

7:07 pm: Pilot repeats this claim, and, at around this time, manages to convey a coded message to the ATC indicating that the hijackers are five in number.

7:11 pm: The panic is rising. Pilot says, “Now guns are on our head. Everyone will be shot down in another three to five minutes. Kindly please come refuel….”

7:15 pm: Pilot speaks again: “Why are you taking that much time. Guns are on our heads now.”

The transcript over the next several minutes again requires close examination.

7:23 pm: “They are going to kill us any time. Please send the bowser. They have started killing now. Where is Oh…..! Where is the bowser now? Please tell us.”

7:25 pm: “Where is the bowser? Where is the bowser (crying voice), yaar. He has started killing the passenger. Why don’t you understand our problem. Where is the bowser yaar?…He has already killed a passenger now. Why don’t you understand. Now we have stopped. Send the bowser fast. Please. Where is the bowser?”

7:42 pm: “Four passengers have been killed now. Why have not you responded. The bowser is not coming here. What is the problem?”

A still from ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’. The Wire

According to one of the district authorities present at the ATC, the impression conveyed by the pilot was that the hijackers were losing their balance. These messages created an atmosphere of panic at the ATC. Contact was established with Delhi again but no clear instructions were received, the earlier instructions were repeated. Even as some of the officers rushed off to quietly brief the Press on the “four killings” on the plane, other officers present at the scene had doubts about the veracity of the claim. IG Birdi, in his Press briefing shortly after the plane took-off, stressed, among other things, that no shots had been heard by the policemen stationed within hearing distance from the plane.

His statement also provided confirmation of the fact that Punjab Police personnel had, indeed, moved on to the tarmac to within 300 metres of the plane.

Strangely, the authorities, while trying to justify their inaction had this to say, “One false move could have gravely endangered the lives of nearly 200 persons.” They defended the lack of any active steps by saying that it was impossible to gauge the reaction of the hijackers, what they were armed with and how well trained they were. But from the above transcript it seems reasonably clear that the fact of four people apparently having been killed did not spur them to any urgency regarding refuelling.

They were obviously willing to waste four lives through delay and indecision (in retrospect they actually lost one life) over the refuelling, but were not willing to take direct action that would risk the lives of the passengers. This does not ring true. What it suggests is that they were working under certain (erroneous) assumptions. These would include the presumption that, with Lahore having refused permission and the plane left with barely any fuel, it could not go anywhere. The only way the plane could have taken-off, they felt, was if they went ahead with refuelling. The analysis of facts here was clearly incompetent, and was based primarily on the record of claims – which should have been seen to be inconsistent and deliberately misleading – made by the pilot at various stages before the landing.

Clearly, moreover, they were willing to risk lives, and they did, by trying to delay refuelling till the National Security Guard (NSG) arrived. Their second assumption also eventually proved to be miserably wrong. Indeed, they should have foreseen, or at least taken into account the possibility, that Lahore would, at some point of time, grant permission for the plane to land there. To place unqualified faith in Pakistan in such a situation is certainly less than wise.

Moreover, the inability to work out the actual amount of fuel remaining in the plane was just plain unprofessional. The amount should have been calculated to the last drop. In any case, since it is clear that they were willing to, and did, risk lives, there was nothing preventing action such as blocking the runway, or otherwise disabling the plane. The fact that the plane was taxiing on the runway for much of (though by no accounts all) the time does nothing to undermine possibilities of disabling or blocking the plane. Taxiing speeds were low, and the plane comes to a virtual standstill on each turn. There were more than ample opportunities to act, if the will and the clarity of vision and command had been there.

7:30 pm: The plane suddenly takes a half-turn and faces the North-South direction.

7:35 pm: Message from Delhi to the ATC that an NSG team had been dispatched. Specific instructions are repeated that the plane should be prevented from taking off. However, it is not clarified as to how this was to be done. A message is also sent to the DIG (BSF) in Amritsar with the same instructions. Three companies of the BSF are moved to the airport. Punjab Police personnel also enter the airfield and approach within 300 metres of the plane.

7:40 pm: Shortly before take-off, the plane takes a 180 degrees turn to face South. While passenger reports suggest that there is some truth in the CMG’s claim that the plane was constantly turning on the tarmac, according to a very reliable source present at the ATC, the plane just made these two turns.

7:49 pm: The plane took-off surprising everyone at the Control Tower.

According to an observer present there, “No one anticipated that the plane would take-off like that. We all knew the plane had hardly any fuel left, and certainly did not expect such a suicidal step.” The plane had a near miss with the oil tanker, which had been stationed on the runway for refuelling. Sources make it clear that the tanker had been stationary at that point for at least the preceding ten minutes. No police official has yet confirmed the fact being now “leaked out” that trained policemen had been put on the bowser, and its movement towards the plane scared the hijackers.

8:15 pm: The NSG team lands at Amritsar – 26 minutes after IC 814 had flown out, one hour and 14 minutes after it had landed at Amritsar, and a full three hours and 23 minutes after the first information of the hijack had been received at ATC Delhi. The team is headed by a Brigadier from the 52 Special Action Group and comprises 130 commandos.

According to sources, the commandos received information of the hijack at 6:10 pm at Manesar. It took them almost an hour to assemble at Delhi Airport, and they were ready for take-off on an Indian Air Force plane, at around 7:05 pm. Newspaper reports suggest that the failure of trained negotiators from intelligence agencies to reach the airport on time further delayed take-off by another half-hour. This is more than amazing – in a situation of extreme emergency a rapid response team sits waiting for a psychologist to arrive for half an hour, and it does not strike the decision makers that the latter could follow on another plane later, if needed. This is not an administrative failure, but an abject collapse of basic common sense. In any case, the one-hour delay between being informed and being ready to take-off itself speaks poorly of the efficiency of the NSG. Not to factor the distance to the Airport and the traffic on Delhi’s roads into a rapid response plan displays an unacceptable level of incompetence.

These, of course, are mere details. The intention of the exercise of listing them here is not to fix individual responsibility on, or to blame, particular officials; this is not the objective of this paper, and would, in any event, be a futile exercise, since the same failures would only be repeated by someone else the next time round, when another – similar or dissimilar – crisis arises. It is at the level of a paradigm of response that the failures at Amritsar are important, and it is at this level that they need to be analysed if any effective structures of crisis management are to be forged out of our experience.

Shorn of detail, what were the generic failures at Amritsar?

The first and most significant failure was the inability to establish an unambiguous and unique centre of command within reasonable time – and “reasonable time” in such a crisis, is to be measured in minutes, not hours. The failure here is institutional. A long and slow process of decay has undermined, disabled and, in many cases, destroyed the emergency response systems that were in place at various levels of governance, replacing them, by and large, by an anarchic system of charismatic leadership, where extraordinary individual initiative sometimes produces dramatic results. Charismatic and competent leaders, however, cannot be present for every one of the innumerable emergencies that arise with unfailing regularity in India. Consequently, most crises produce a conflicting reaction: on the one hand, an undignified jockeying for the centre position and for media projection, and, on the other, an abdication of responsibility by the majority of those who are required to act.

A still from ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’. The Wire

One of the most effective institutions and processes of this abdication is the “committee” or sets of committees that “take over” – as they did in the present case – and play out a great charade of discussion, communication and management, while simply refusing to take decisive action. At the end of the day, even if the consequences are entirely disastrous – as they were in the present case – no one is responsible, since the decisions, or their lack, were “collective”. At worst, some low level official at the site of the crisis can be sacrificed as the scapegoat of the hour. The situation is worsened infinitely by a long history of punishing officers who actually take action, while no penalties ever attach to “sins of omission” and acts of outright dereliction.

The second critical failure is that, even those who “took charge” – in the sense of arriving at the communication centres of the crisis management system that came into being out of the dynamics of the hijacking, and the moribund structures of systems past, i.e., the Raja Sansi Airport, the CMG at Delhi, and the CMC at Chandigarh – simply did not know what was to be done. Each began de novo, effectively trying to reinvent the wheel, with no guidelines, no reference to a historical context, and no structured system of emergency response.

The third critical failure was the inability to install or activate a clear line of communication with and between the various actors in the task. Conflicting and contradictory instructions were consequently being received through random and informal modes of communication – including personal cell phones – by various authorities at the Raja Sansi Airport, emanating in each case from sources that far outranked the officers in the field. Within the context of the existing political and administrative system, these circumstances would ordinarily divest local authorities of the will to initiate any action on their own initiative – though this should certainly not be the case.

Moreover, the ATC official who was actually communicating with the pilot of the plane, and through him, with the hijackers, had no clear idea of the various information flows. Of course, the fact that even among those who were at the command centres of this management system, no one knew what was to be done, only compounded the problem further.

No system for providing adequate technical backup to decision makers was apparently in place till the end of the crisis. Simple but critical calculations – such as the available fuel in the plane – had clearly not been made. Nor were the technical and military options for immobilising the plane adequately clarified or explored. Individuals from non-technical backgrounds, with limited or no prior experience either of a crisis of this kind, or of other aviation or military emergencies, were evidently wracking their brains to figure out some sort of solution through the standard bureaucratic process of unending and ill-informed discussion.

There was no context of a national policy on hostage or hijacking situations, or, for that matter, on terrorism in general, that could provide any kind of hint or guideline on the broad parameters of the resolution that was to be sought. The various decision makers were – as stated before – required to reinvent the wheel entirely on their own, right from the CMG at Delhi down to the officers struggling with the situation at the Raja Sansi Airport.

Rapid Deployment Forces located at Delhi failed to reach the focal point of the crisis in time. Had they done so, their very presence would have created a new dimension, multiplying available options manifold. Needless to say, the forces available at the Airport and in Amritsar lacked the capabilities necessary for the kind of operation that the NSG could have launched, and, despite their substantial presence fairly close to the plane, could not influence the ‘equation’ on the ground.

There were, furthermore, several aspects of the management of the adventitious or subsidiary crises that were ignored or bungled by the government. Some of these secondary crises established themselves within the first hours of the event, but persisted to the great detriment of the national interest throughout the crisis, and have survived into the aftermath. These related, in large part, to problems of co-ordinating media, public and international relations.

The first of these was a complete absence of a co-ordinated media response. From the very beginning of the crisis, the Government and its officials spoke in a hundred conflicting voices, bringing its deliberations and decisions into the sphere of public debate at a time when restraint and sagacity – and not recrimination and the confused cacophony of ill-informed advice – were most needed. There was no system of media management, of the projection of a single, dignified and well-informed voice, reflecting a national government’s sense of command and stability. Indeed, some of the highest offices of the land lent their authority and credibility to unconfirmed information that eventually proved false. If anything, the hijacking crisis underlined the fact that we have far too many amateurs in government – and that it is time that they were, at the very least, told to shut up.

In any crisis of this nature, it is imperative that an effective system be established to sift through the frenetic and contradictory flows of information, and that only what is confirmed should be released. This is not only a question of the government’s credibility. Public perceptions are an integral input into the dynamics of decision making in these emergencies. And if these are distorted by disinformation and by deliberate falsehood, the possibilities of arriving at optimal decisions recede.

Take an example: the hijackers’ claim, articulated through the pilot of IC 814, that they were armed with AK 47s, grenades and RDX was accepted as gospel and hastily communicated to every journalist in the vicinity. It was quoted as unqualified fact in every television channel even while the events of the hijacking were still unfolding, and was printed in every newspaper the next morning.

This perception had a powerful impact, not only on those who were charged with decision-making in this crisis, but also on our relations with a friendly country, which brings us to another aspect of subsidiary crisis management – the containment of unintended consequences in international relations. India heaped ignominy on Nepal and arbitrarily suspended flights to that country without even bothering to wait for the processes of an objective inquiry. Senior officials of the government pilloried the security arrangements at Tribhuvan International Airport without ascertaining the magnitude of the actual breach that had occurred. A breach had, of course, occurred – but the response was certainly disproportionate, and was based exclusively on the first aggregation of disinformation, sourced from the hijackers themselves.

I cannot conceive of a less diplomatically sound course of action than what was adopted by India towards Nepal. Worse still, each element of this disgracing of Nepal was carried out in public, communicated to the media even as, if not before, it was communicated to that country’s government.

A similar ineptitude characterised the handling of the relatives of the hijacked passengers. Part of the problem was, again, media management, as contradictory and exaggerated official and quasi-official statements fed the hysteria of the relatives. Of course, the conduct of a section of the relatives themselves was nothing less than disgraceful, but that cannot absolve the government of its own incompetence. A single, authentic and well informed source of the official position should have immediately been established to liaise with the relatives, as also to provide an immediate channel of relief, so that they did not believe themselves to be abandoned, for hours at end, in the waiting lounges of the Airport. Suffice it to say, even to the very end of the crisis, an adequate and efficient system of information and relief for the relatives had not been established.

All the preceding factors combined into a single and devastating image of loss of control, of confusion and impotence that has continued to magnify in the aftermath of the crisis through the proliferation of manifestly puerile statements and suggestions in official quarters, and of empty political rhetoric posturing as policy.

These, indeed, have conceded to the hijackers a victory far greater than was merited by the release of three terrorists. The sheer confusion, the sense of visible frustration, and the direct and manifestly unsuccessful engagement of the highest offices in the country, both in the management and the aftermath of the hijacking, are the unintended consequences that are still to be fully evaluated, or even realised. Put yourself in the hijackers’ place, and that of their sponsors, and try to imagine the sense of empowerment and satisfaction, not just of securing the release of three militants, but of having discomfited, and even humiliated, so many senior Indian leaders – including ministers and perhaps the Prime Minister himself. Imagine the sheer gratification of having inspired such a deep sense of failure and – as the pronouncements of the leaders of some political formations suggest – even self-loathing, in the political leadership and the public at large. And consider the propaganda and recruitment potential of having created a feeling of bafflement and frustration in the Indian security forces to an extent far greater than ever before, greater even than the despondency or demoralisation that all the body bags over the past year had been able to instil in our fighting men. This, in fact, is what the terrorists actually achieved at the end of the hijacking – not just the release of three militants.

(K.P.S. Gill was a decorated Indian Police Service officer who served twice as DGP for Punjab).

This article is excerpted by The Wire with permission from the piece ‘Terrorism, Institutional Collapse & Emergency Response Protocols,’ that first appeared on the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP). Read the original here.

Copyright: The Wire