Wakeup Call

The decision to spent ₹1,487 crore to secure military camps was a knee-jerk reaction. A lot more needs to be done

- Namrata Biji Ahuja

After repeated attacks on military bases in Jammu and Kashmir, like the one on the Sunjuwan Army camp on February 10, the issue of border safety has reared its head once again. While there was retaliation for the Uri attack of September 2016, in the form of the much publicised “surgical strikes”, the government seemed to have overlooked something more basic and urgent—the speedy implementation of the report submitted by a top-level tri-services committee, headed by former Army vice chief Lt Gen (retd) Philip Campose.

The Campose committee—formed after the attack on the Pathankot Air Force station in January 2016—submitted its report in May of that year. It recommended a host of measures on how to strengthen perimeter defences, security infrastructure and response mechanism, to ward off such attacks in future.