@A chauhan
This OT but you have to look at how you define what type of threat is a "bigger threat"
IMO, fatalities is probably the best method
And looking at that, in India, even if you add the J&K attacks which is more of an insurgency like what we have in the Naxalite areas and NE than say terror attacks of the type in Mumbai; the numbers would be quite interesting.
The NCTC in the US has been tracking all violent incidents in India since 2004 and the cumulative attacks where the perpetrators are "Islamic" extremists is around
9%.
That is taking into account all attacks including the J&K ones If you excluse the J&K attacks then the numbers fall even more.
https://wits.nctc.gov/FederalDiscov...=Country|4294966898|India&Rcv=Perpetrator&N=0
More than 50% of the attacks are maoists related. To say that maoists dominate violence in India with no support from the tribals would be an illogical thing to say. The maoists have a well developed support base who for what ever reasons believe that they will deliver and resolve their grivenaces. Terror attacks outside India have no support compared to maoists. That is why all lethal attacks in India have Pakistani involvement.
J&K which did have indigenous support was again an insurgency just like what we have in the maoists areas or what we had in Punjab in the 80s. When the state doesn't deliver on the genuine griveances, then such problems can take a more serious turn.
Some other things you mentioned doesn't really apply in the Indian case. OBL never serioulsy targeted India and hardly mentioned India in any of his speeches and we don't have a Muslim Brotherhood counter part in India, but Muslim Brotherhood itself doesn't have anything to do with terror attacks in India or abroad. The closest we can get in India is the Jamaat Islami - Hind and this organisation has disavowed politics and has also removed some teachings of Maududi from its core philosophies like the idea of establishing an "Islamic state" where sharia is implemented top down among other things.
IMO, fatalities is probably the best method
Almost 100% people follow a religion here, and whenever a religious terror attack happens, it disturbs the minds of every and each common Indian, while Maoists do not attack on religious basis, so basically majority of people doesn't get affected by it as it does not disturbs the minds of common people.
Though fatalities in Maoist attacks are higher but terror attack attracts and disturbs the minds of the common people, that is why now Govt. is taking it as a more bigger threat than Maoism.After 9/11 people have understood how dangerous terrorism can be.
I am always of the view that the "defence of your country starts with the development of your agriculture" if your agriculture is weak your national defence is weak, Indian Maoists demand the development of their rural/tribal areas which is not a bad thing, when Govt. fails to realize its targets in such areas, such problems occur. Maoists are influenced by Maoist political sentiment and ideology, and not by Terror. Indian govt. announced "Integrated Action Plan" (IAP) against Naxalism in 2009, its aim was to develop the Naxalite affected areas from grass root level, and it also funded for better police establishment, to reduce the Naxalite influence.In 2009, Naxalites were active across approximately 180 districts in ten states of India.In August 2010, after the first full year of implementation of the national IAP program,Karnataka was removed from the list of naxal affected states.In July 2011, the number of Naxal affected areas were reduced to (figure includes proposed addition of 20 districts) 83 districts across nine states.In December 2011 govt. reported that the number of Naxalite related deaths and injuries nationwide had gone down by nearly 50% from 2010 levels.
On the other hand the sole aim of the terrorists is to spread "Terror" for emotional and religious or non religious causes which are highly biased or unjustified,has neither head nor feet,and tough to be controlled, there is no way to stop a Fidayeen attack unless you know who is going to make it.In short they are "fanatics" who can only be controlled through
"identification" and prosecution.
As i said above, Naxalism is gradually declining and now we need to deal with the terrorism.Now we need to announce an Integrated Action Plan against Terrorism having effective measures to identify terrorists and their supporters and for that this sting operation method is quite effective.
Some other things you mentioned doesn't really apply in the Indian case. OBL never serioulsy targeted India and hardly mentioned India in any of his speeches and we don't have a Muslim Brotherhood counter part in India, but Muslim Brotherhood itself doesn't have anything to do with terror attacks in India or abroad.
OBL was a Terrorist, with the sole aim of spreading Terror and though he didn't directly attack or plan against India yet he brought great fear to Indians.And there was no gaurantee that he wont target us.Till there is US we will always be a second potential victim of Al Qaida. But I remember how Shahi Imaam Bukhari and some others denied to consider him a terrorist,they also declared that shooting him was wrong,and some of them offered prayer for the peace of his soul, peacce to the soul of a terrorist!! If there was no Muslim brotherhood in India then there can't be any IM or SIMI here.Hyderabad and Ahmedabad are good examples of this,everyone in India know that Pakistan is a terrorist state yet people hail "Pakistan Zindabad" in some areas and those areas are directly inlfuenced by Muslim Brotherhood, which almost all of us have experienced and seen.
Maoist problem can be controlled by military measures and development plans but terrorism can only be be controlled by
preventive measures such as better Intelligence and information network.. What i notice is Maoist normally attack on tribal, police and government workers, who are on duty in tribal/rural areas, their impact on urban area is very limited, once those rural areas get developed Maoists will cease to exist.While terrorists basically attack on civilians and innocent there is no way to stop it until we actively keep an eye on those through effective methods and this sting operation is one of them.
All i want to say is Naxalites have some legitimate demands of development,which can be fulfilled through some positive efforts by govt. while you can't fulfill any demand of terrorists as they only want to spread terror, so it's better to identify and prosecute them asap.
Many terror attacks have left evidences of local support, without which such attacks were impossible, so this method of sting operation is highly relevant.
