| Many states still ill-equipped in bomb disposal |
New Delhi, Aug. 10 (PTI): As terrorists go hi-tech using remote-controlled devices, many states in the country continue to be ill-equipped to diffuse bombs, say experts.
Most states in the country are ill-equipped in carrying out bomb detection and post blast investigation and the country has only one -the National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC) at Maneshar in Haryana which is a specialised centre, says a retired army official.
Apart from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Addhra Pradesh, the remaining states in India are still following the traditional ways of bomb diffusing process, he adds.
"We are still backwards when it comes to bomb diffusing technologies. If you compare with USA or UK, they are far ahead of us. Even they use robots to diffuse the bombs," he says.
Colonel Ajay Ahooja, Director,National Security Guards (NSG), declines to comment on the present condition of BDS of other law enforcing agencies but says that NSG has all the facilities and equipment to fight the menace.
London BDS acted on time and diffused the bombs in jeep driven by Kafeel Ahmed with a great sense of planning and perfect implementation in the recent terror plot which took the whole world with surprise. But, on the other hand, Indian policemen looked helpless and without clue in diffusing bombs kept in tiffin boxes in the Hyderabad Mosque blast.
Newspaper pictures, which showed them diffusing bombs without having mask and cover, was a classic example of bravery and misfortune, experts say.
Two bomb disposal squad personnel of the CID were killed while defusing a bomb at the Maoist-infested Jhitka area under Lalgarh police station in West Bengal's West Midnapore district on September 21, 2006.
The blast occurred when a bomb concealed in an aluminium tiffin box found on a road, was being defused by the bomb disposal squad. Police and eyewitnesses said the bomb disposal squad personnel were using their bare hands and a chisel and a hammer to break open the tiffin box. Neither were they wearing protective jackets.
A similar blast was engineered by the maoists two years earlier at Bankisole in the same district killing six Eastern Frontier Rifle personnel.
"There are states using the modern equipment such as optical fibroscope for their Bomb Disposal Squad. They are Delhi, UP, Chhattisgarh, Orrissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jammu Kashmir," says an official of a company which provides equipment to the BDS of different states.
There were 295, 354, 372 and 233 bomb explosions in the country during the years 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, according to a study conducted by the National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC).
The NBDC has been collating, analysing and disseminating information on bombing incidents to all government agencies. The NBDC forwards advisory reports to the states based on the lessons learnt from the various post blast investigation and analysis.
Now terrorists use (Improvised Explosive Devices) IEDs, which have been responsible for hundreds of casualtties in the terrorism affected areas of the country. In 2005, out of the national total of 233 bombing incidents, J-K dominated the national scenario with 97 incidents followed by Assam, Manipur and Jharkhand.
According to a security expert, naxal affected Jharkhand and Chattisgarh taken together witnessed more blasts in 2006 than J-K. Compared to 78 IED blasts in J-K in 2006, a total of 91 explosions took place in these naxal affected states.
Modern technology has enabled the terrorist groups to plan and execute over a larger canvas killing large number of people and presenting challenging task to the government agencies and that's why it can be easily seen that the number of blasts in the last few years have gone down but number of casualties have gone up. There has been growth of explosives made out of innocuons items such as fertilizers or plaster of paris.
"Till recently, terrorism was considered a regional phenomenon but with globalisation and advancement in science and technology, terrorists have now trans-national reach and their operations have become more lethal," says Brigadier (Retd.) Virender Kumar. "Behind every blast, the terrorist's basic aim is to cause injuries, create confusion. In most of the cases, BDS gets information regarding the bomb after the blast has already taken place," he says.
On policemen diffusing bombs without wearing mask or cover, Brig. Kumar says, "They are morons. They should wait for the full BDS team having sniffer dogs, endoscatic mirrors, video cameras and portable X-ray devices."
Suspected actuating mechanism of bomb explosion can be Anti Handling (device set off by handling), Command wire (device connected by long wire), Timed (device set to detonate at a predetermined time) and landmines.
An official of BDS team in New Delhi says, "our ninety per cent work is of Anti Sabotage Cell (ASC). We check the venue and the roads to which a VVIP is expected. A large number of the policemen are into safeguarding the life of these important personalities. There are very few people in the team who are experts in handling the bomb disposal. Most of the time we get hoax calls about bombs.
"In Orissa, the main security threat is of Naxalites. They use RDX, landmines and even some conventional bombs like nitro-glycerin, trinitrate, RDX C3, C4 and TNT," says a senior official of Orissa Intelligence.
The arms and explosive wing of German military developed high-stexplosive called trinitrotoluene' (TNT) in 1902 by the action of nitric and sulphuric acid on Toluene.
Then after manufacture of TNT, research and development explosive (RDX) was developed. Named chemically as yclotrimethylene trinitramine, it is cast with some amounts of TNT 40 to 45 per cent and is used where the highest degree or power of shattering effect is needed.
In Hyderabad Mosque blast, which claimed nine lives during Friday prayers, a highly sophisticated bomb with deadly RDX and TNT was used. The bomb disposal squad recovered 300 gm of RDX and TNT after defusing the unexploded IED.
Malegaon explosion that claimed 38 lives at a graveyard on the occasion of Shab-e-Barat in the textile town in Nasik district of Maharashtra, RDX was used in all the four bombs that rocked the communally sensitive town.
"Our BDS is divided into two wings- one looks after the security forces threat and the other for the safety of VIPs. Recently central government has granted a huge fund for the establishment of BDS at every police station in the state. We are working towards providing bullet proof vehicles to the BDS, which is now only available to the VIPs," he adds.
Bomb Disposal is an emcopassing term to describe the separate but interrelated functions in military (Explosive ordinance disposal) and public safety (public safety bomb disposal).
http://www.hindu. com/thehindu/ holnus/004200708 100322.htm |
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