Mumbai: Security experts of four mega cities of the world - Mumbai, London, Manila and New York, today emphasised on better networking among stakeholders in their bid to prevent terror attacks.
Security experts, policy makers and thinkers from different nations were in the city to take part in the two-day conference on Megacity Security organised by the US Consulate General that concluded today.
They also raised the crucial issue of funding of terrorist organisations and advocated stopping the terror groups funding.
"Terrorism does not and cannot happen without funding as it involves huge money to train operatives, getting sophisticated equipment, weapons and other logistics. Hence, if funding to these terror groups is stopped, then problem would be solved," Chandra Iyengar, former bureaucrat who headed the Home department of Maharashtra during the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, said.
Sharing first hand account of the 26/11 attacks in the country's financial capital that claimed 166 lives and left over 250 injured, Iyengar said the reason behind the 26/11attacks was "lack of precise intelligence" and the unexpected manner in which terrorists executed their plan.
"During 26/11, our hospitals were not equipped to deal with such massive massacre. We had no volunteers to reach out or find out the relatives of the victims, which we later did through proper network," the former IAS officer said.
General Jonathan Ferdinand Miano, director, Directorate of Operations, Government of Philippines, said his department (Police) has learnt a wide range of lessons from a spate of crimes that took place in the Manila city in past few years and have formulated plans to counter extremists plot.
"We are dealing with home grown extremists. We are also dealing hard with those who are close to violent extremists but don't meet the threshold for criminal proceedings to be taken against them," he said.
Greame Millar and John Daly, security experts from London and New York respectively, briefed about the precautionary measures taken by them that have foiled attempts of possible terror attacks.
In another round of discussion on the role of media while reporting terror attacks, noted journalists opined that it was time for media houses to train beat reporters to cover such incidents.
Suhasini Haider, Strategic and Diplomatic Affairs Editor of national daily The Hindu, said, "Media and security forces are not on the same side and indiscriminate nature of terror attacks have made everyone vulnerable and journalists are also being targeted. Besides, reporters should be given ample training. The guidelines should be made standardised."
Former journalist Nitin Gokhale said during a crisis like terror attacks, ommunication should come from the top officials and that too credible and quick.
Journalist Sushant Singh, who was a former army officer, said that standard operating procedures should be in place and there should be a single point communication centre where the spokesperson of multiple stake holders should give out information to concerned reporters.
"Covering riots, wars and terror attacks are specialised beats and should not be left with any journalist who is available. Organisations should invest in training of journalists covering these beats," he said.
Policy makers, law enforcement officials, security experts and leading thinkers shared their first-hand experience of dealing with security policy in some of the world's largest cities such as Mumbai, New York, Istanbul, Chicago, Manila, Dhaka, Nairobi and Mexico City.
