The car bombing that ripped apart the tranquility of the area near the Red Fort in Delhi, resulting in the senseless murder of eight innocent individuals, is a painful reminder that the threat from terrorism is both salient and adaptable. The high-level security review called the day after this cowardly attack in Srinagar by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha is a welcome, if natural, reaction to the attack. Nevertheless, the specifics of the developing investigation should shake the nation out of any sense of security. We are not only facing a resurgence of terrorism but have also evolved into an insidiously adaptive variant of sophisticated and terrifying warfare.
The most unsettling aspect is the purported creation of a vast terror network by medical practitioners, doctors who are supposedly bound by the Hippocratic Oath to save lives. The arrests of Dr. Aadil Ahmad Rather, Dr. Muzammil Shakeel and Dr. Shaheen Shahid, and the belief that Dr. Umar Mohammad was involved in the Red Fort attack, present a new dimension of horror. If individuals dedicated to the health of this country are actually plotting its demise, we are in peril and deeply penetrated. This can’t be only the brutish efforts of infiltrating terrorists; this is a sophisticated operation from …. inside …. using the reputation and mobility of a profession respected and trusted for good reason.
The magnitude of the discovered arsenal, from AK-series rifles to nearly 2,900 kg of IED-building materials, indicates objectives far beyond episodic violence. This was a network that was preparing for a prolonged campaign of terror, potentially targeting urban centres throughout Canada. The tactic of using a doctor’s private vehicle to move weapons exploits societal trust that the average citizen has and leaves little room for conventional profiling; simply put, it is a low-risk option that results in low probability of detection.
The Lieutenant Governor’s call for “constant vigilance” and “smooth coordination” are expected and necessary. However, this moment calls for more. It calls for a complete rethinking of our counter-terrorism strategy. First, the intelligence apparatus needs to adapt away from focusing primarily on offenders and routes of infiltration. Rather, we need more effective forms of intelligence gathering capable of identifying radicalization of educated, professional communities. This will necessitate improved cyber-intelligence regarding the monitoring of encrypted communications and a better understanding of the new narratives being employed to target educated youth.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, we must tackle the ideology. The ability for a highly skilled, educated individual with a promising career, to be persuaded to carry out mass murder, is indicative of a failure that goes far deeper than policing. A security response is not only insufficient, it must also be coupled with a robust counter-radicalization strategy, which empowers communities and assists the vulnerable in examining and deconstructing the toxic narratives which fuel their betrayals. While the Red Fort is a monument; it is also much more, representing India’s sovereignty and resilience. The attack on it’s periphery was meant to convey a message. A terror module led by a doctor, constitutes the decoding of that message: the enemy is patient, clever and can wear the unlikeliest of masks. Therefore, the response must be equally smart, holistic, and ruthless, while also being aware of the potential for others to fill the vacuum left by action. It is time for a wake-up call, before the next prescription for terror is filled.
