New Delhi: Indian engineer Suryanarayana's abduction and assassination by Afghanistan's Taliban militia may have finally alerted Indian and Afghan governments to the need for more security for Indians working in the strife-torn country.
At least this is what it seems considering the little but important headway made in Maniappan Kutty's murder investigation. Kutty was the Border Roads Organistion worker kidnapped and murdered by the Taliban in 2005.
Afghan authorities have arrested one Taliban suspect and the Indian government is stepping up security for all Indians based in Afghanistan.
More Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel will be sent to protect the Indian mission in Kabul and the consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar and they would join the 200 commandos already present in the country.
However, no extra cover has been provided for the consulates in the sensitive Herat and Mazaar-e-Sharief, despite reports in the Afghan media of two bomb blasts close to the Indian consulate in Heart in the recent past.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also called for heightened security for Indians working on Indian government projects and private companies have been advised to strictly adhere to an elaborate list of do's and dont's.
India has also requested the US and Germany to intensify their training programmes for Aghan army and the Afghan police respectively.
But security experts and diplomats say the appraoch will not provide a long-term solution.
"I do not think it's right to take such ad-hoc steps. You beef up security and then the other country will also implement and this goes on. So there had to be some more planning," Former Indian diplomat Bhadra Kumar says.
While some believe India will be sucked into the Afghan quagmire by sending troops to the strife-torn nation, others believe it will be tragic to withdraw troops from there.
India will clearly have to walk a tightrope to balance diplomatic ties with strategic interests.
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