Wake up call for Orissa

DN Singh With the major cities of the country having come within the firing line of extremists, the question is, is Orissa safe? Going by the recent report of the Centre on internal security, Orissa is on the terror radar. All those things that are thought to be the mainstay of extremists` financial strength are present in Orissa. In recent times Orissa has witnessed incidents of arms trade and drug trafficking; and the leads got from those arrested clearly pointed to deadly rackets flourishing in the neighboring countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. There is about 480 km long coast line bereft of any solid security ring to prevent any kind of infiltration. After the terror attack in Mumbai while the union government and its beleaguered think tanks seem desperately trying to teach the perpetrators a lesson, back in Orissa, the government seems in no hurry to cast a glance at its vulnerable coast line. There are more than four lakh Bangladeshis (most of them illegal immigrants) living in the Kandrapada, Balasire, Jagatsinghpur and Bhadrak areas. Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik ought to understand the necessity of vigilance which the existing security agencies are not able to exercise due to visible lack of infrastructure. The Navy has its limitations; as admitted by the Naval Chief himself sometime back, and the Indian Coast Guard stationed in Orissa is not in a position to spread its radar wide enough with just two ships at its disposal. It gets tougher in times of crisis when the coast guard with no speed boat, no beach craft and no helicopter has to guard the vast stretch with its collective strength of 55 personnel, including officers and sailors. With no police (marine police) presence to back up the Coast guard, the infiltrators enjoy a free run through the sea and the tidal inlets. To maintain vigilance the foremost need is coordination among the Navy, Coast Guard and the Marine police. The lack of the latter reflects the mindless dereliction of duty on the part of state officials and the political executives. “It will be of immense help if we have more forces and vessels,” said Commander VK Vergese, in charge of Indian Coast Guard in Orissa. “It is virtually a free for all situation along the 480 km long Orissa coast and things appear more precarious when we see unscreened influx of Bangladeshis from across the border through land and sea route,” observed AN Tiwari, former DGP Orissa and former Director of National Security Guard. The situation is compounded by the fact that our politicians are too preoccupied with vote bank politics to spare themselves for such things as these; down the years these intruders have become their electoral base. Right from Chandipur to Gopalpur, there are about five extremely sensitive defense installations of national importance besides the famous Sun Temple at Konark and the temple of Lord Jagannath on the coast of Puri. “The way the Bangladeshis row in and out into the coastal inlets, they can cause any havoc any day in any of our places of importance,” rued Biswajit Mohanty, a marine expert. In 2006 the Central Government had asked the state to begin by opening 5 Marine Police stations along Orissa coast but, till date not a single station has been set up. This means, the Coast Guard has to work in isolation without baseline support.