‘Indians must participate in their anti-terror fight’

NEW DELHI - India has to fight its own battle against terrorism and for that coordinated efforts on the part of the government and people are needed, experts said at a security conference here Monday.

“A synergised and coordinated response is the need of the hour in combating the enhanced and geographically wider threat emanating from a sophisticated internationally networked and continually mutating threat of terrorism,” said former secretary (security) Shyam Ratan Mehra.

Mehra and other speakers at the “Building Secure Cities in Troubled Times” conference stressed that terrorism is a battle without frontiers, and everyone - the state, its citizens and the industry - should take responsibility for security.

“It is ‘brand India’, now increasingly popular with global investors and tourists and reflecting India’s economic success or its multicultural ethos, that India’s enemies wish to destroy through acts of terror. As the idea of India is now under attack, every citizen must take responsibility and join India’s fight against terror,” said Maroof Raza, a well known security expert.

The conference organised by the Security Watch India, independent nonprofit organisation, was also attended by former Punjab police chief K.P.S. Gill and Colonel (retd) Virender Chandrawat and international security experts.