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Coastal security issues very sensitive - Dy SP Prasanna


Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, April 19, 2015:    DySP HN Venkatesh Prasanna  who returned home after a training programme on seaport security anti-terrorism training programme (SSATP) in Charleston, US. After observing the technology used in the US to secure its ports,  pointed out that India has a long way to go to implement this sort of concept. 


 Dy SP PrasannaHe said that US has secured islands which connect to the mainland so that they can tackle attack on its ports. The US has already upgraded  security systems at ports  being further tightened.  India has yet  no basic security at the Old Port or other fish landing centre barring the NMPT - New Mangalore Port, let alone security checks of vessels arriving from the open sea. 

We in India must combine both technology and human intelligence to combat terrorism he said, adding that the focus of discussion during the training was prevention of terror via sea ports, especially after the Mumbai attacks. Dy SP Prassana stated that  US has studied the Mumbai attack in detail. They are in the process of improving security to such an extent that terror from sea is not a possibility. The US security has sophisticated scanners to examine even large containers. Here we do it manually. The scanners are so powerful that even the smallest quantity of narcotics in a container is detected. 

He also mentioned that US  is aware attack from the sea is likely as they have 30 million fishing boats and that a similar situation akin to Mumbai may occur there. Although they have RFID-like chips to detect the entry and exit of boats from as far as 200 miles , they feel 26/11 event is still a possibility. The training exercise was carried out at Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), which serves as an inter-agency law enforcement training body for 91 United States government federal law enforcement agencies.  DySP Venkatesh Prasanna will submit a report on the training and his assessment of threat perception in this region soon which hopefully the Govt will  look into.