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A year on, Mumbai is still vulnerable ()

By Emily Wax

When state police reservists from a rural district were summoned to Mumbai to guard two of India’s most prestigious landmarks — the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and the Gateway of India, a majestic archway that faces the Arabian Sea — they were filled with pride.

They would be the protectors of landmarks that were at the epicenter of three days of deadly terrorist attacks last November that killed 165 people. But the young men from Solapaur, located outside Mumbai, never thought they would be homeless, drying their underwear in the humid sea air and sleeping on blankets rolled out beneath monuments to India’s prosperity.

“As police we still have so many problems,” said Manoj, an officer with bloodshot eyes, who asked that his last name not be divulged for fear he would lose his job. “To be frank, we are too scared to speak up.”

While Manoj, 26, has been living without housing, officers from dozens of other security teams, including paramilitary and newly formed anti-terrorist squads, have also been living outdoors near sensitive posts across this megacity of 20 million. Their meager accommodations have highlighted the gap between what Indian politicians have promised to do to improve security since last year’s attacks and what they have delivered.

With militants ascendant in next-door Pakistan and an insurgency worsening in nearby Afghanistan, India’s ability to prevent attacks through intelligence-gathering and better policing has never been more vital, security experts and diplomats say.

This week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is meeting with President Obama in Washington, where their countries’ partnership on counterterrorism efforts will be atop the agenda. The Obama administration sees India as a key partner in an unstable region, said the U.S. ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, who added that United States would work “shoulder to shoulder” with India to prevent terrorist attacks.

But security experts say Mumbai, India’s largest city and its financial and entertainment capital, remains vulnerable. According to the New Delhi Institute of Conflict Management, it has one of the lowest police-to-people ratios in the world.

“In India, the political establishment thinks once you give a speech, the job is done,” said Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, president of the institute and a former director of police in the northern Punjab state. “There is no lack of heroism here. But there is a lack of training. Terrorism is a small commander’s war — even training small key groups can help.”

Police across the country who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch this year repeatedly said they were not trained to combat terrorism, said Meenakshi Ganguly, a researcher for the organization, which recently released a report detailing India’s police deficiencies. That finding, Ganguly suggested, was striking after the attacks last year.

“One year on, even after everyone realized that the attack came from the sea, how do they fix it? By having police sleep out in the open with their underwear drying outside and their guns rusting in the hot air? How is that a country that is taking a threat seriously?” she said.

India’s home minister, P Chidambaram, said in an interview in New Delhi his office is committed to modernizing weapons, improving intelligence-gathering and -sharing and, most important, focusing on “the bread-and-butter issues of police recruitment and training.”

The government has made some noticeable efforts to close security gaps. Police from villages have been bused in to help overburdened city police guard shopping malls and government buildings. Luxury hotels have miniature armies of private security guards, extensive baggage screenings and sandbagged machine-gun bunkers around the premises. India has not suffered an attack since the ones in Mumbai.

Officials here also said they are working with the government to find housing for police who have been left homeless; some have already been moved into tents or police stations.

“All we can do is try to be better prepared and more alert,” said Chidambaram, who has been nicknamed “Mr. Tough” for trying to reform the country’s security forces. “On balance, I think we are better prepared today than a year ago. One year down the line, we will be even better prepared.”

Security is especially important at landmarks such as the Taj, where Indian families and tourists flock to take photos and pile into horse-drawn carriages.

Crowds also gather to gaze at workers climbing metal scaffolding to repair the Taj Mahal’s archways and domes. The hotel, where royalty including the Prince of Wales and rock stars including John Lennon once slept, was set on fire during the attacks. That image became as iconic here as the burning World Trade Center towers were after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York.

Critics of India’s security efforts say it is shocking that police officers in the area have been forced to sleep outside. Some police officers this week said that although they have been left outdoors, most of their colleagues are in dank housing that typically lacks plumbing.

“There is a deep dehumanization of the police and our workers in general. They are not seen as professions of status, even though we have to realize on some level now how important they could be,” said Harish Shetty, a psychiatrist who counsels victims of the Mumbai attacks. “In many ways, we in India expect them to live outside and do their duty, without complaint. But that thinking actually makes their jobs of protecting us impossible.”

Standing near the Gateway of India, Inspector Deepak Dhole, who was injured when he rushed into the Taj during the attacks, said he wasn’t sure what to think of the new forces sleeping outside.

“I don’t know if it’s right,” said Dhole, looking up at the Taj. “But at least they are here. That’s better than last year.”

-LAT-WP

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