The Jaipur bomb blasts have set up an unseemly controversy between the State Government of Rajasthan and the Centre over the collection and dissemination of intelligence about likely terrorist attacks. More and more territorial integrity is being sought to be suborned from within through sleeper cells and long-range suicide missions.

Every State Government has its intelligence wing, which, given the ambiance of globalised terrorism, should be awake to the possibility that a terrorist attack could occur within its borders to target places of worship, centers of tourism, national symbols and concentrations of a particular community in the hope that communal backlash could occur. It is the responsibility of the State CID to be aware of the dangers that could visit the above mentioned sensitive areas as well as the political leadership. To expect to be told by some other external agency about the threat that could occur within its jurisdiction is nothing but dereliction of duty.

It is the responsibility the local CID to monitor suspicious activity. It is amazing how easy it is to transport explosives from one part of the country to another. In the early phase of terrorism much of the explosives used in terrorist attacks were RDX smuggled but more and more local materials are being used trained in camps across the border in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The local CID if it is made aware of these changing trends can through the use of inexpensive means like snuffer dogs be able to monitor areas; through which explosives and arms and ammunition are transported thereby pre-empting an attack even before it is planned.

There is no substitute for local policing for good intelligence gathering. It is from this grassroots level that intelligence is garnered and collated and passed upwards. It is because of the absence of this local area network that the State Governments tends to depend heavily on the Central intelligence agencies to provide accurate actionable intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks. Deployment of security personnel according to the threat perception or counter-measures is the function of the local police.

It is not as if the Central agencies have covered themselves with glory in the past month. These failures show up the flaws in the deployment and management of territorial defence even when enough intelligence was available about terrorist training camps on the other side. The more immediate need is to strengthen local area intelligence gathering network within every State and the Centre should make available equipment, technical know-how and expertise to set up such cells at least in areas perceived to be vulnerable to terrorist attack. This will be both a confidence building measure in an environment fraught with suspicion and political rivalry as well as the nucleus of a nationwide network on the lines wherein information and intelligence is passed rapidly both from the ground up to the national level and vice versa. The States have their role in it and the Central Government has its national responsibilities under the Constitution; both are not mutually exclusive but complementary.