Friends, As per the Newspaper reports, the body of a policeman, Inspector Francis Indvaar, 52 who was kidnapped last week by Maoist rebels in Jharkhand, has been found. He was taken last week from Khunti area as he shopped in a local market. The rebels had offered to release him in exchange for Kobad Ghandy, Chhatradhar Mahato and Chandra Bhushan Yadav - three senior Maoists who are currently in police custody. This demand was rejected by the authorities. The Naxalites must have retorted against this by killing down the hostage. As per BBC report, a senior Maoist leader, Samarji warned of more similar "arrests" of policemen unless three Maoist leaders currently in police custody were released. This brings us to the hostage policy, a very important topic pertaining our domestic and foreign policy arena. As per a Newspaper report by Siddharth Srivastava in the TOI dated 25/11/2002 -"Despite so many instances where the government has had to give in to the demands of dreaded terrorists and many more potentially similar situations, India is yet to come up with a proper hostage policy, unlike other terrorism-affected countries, who have acted fast and put a policy in place to deal with future crises." This Article, in particular, talks of Indian Airlines IC814, Rubaiyya Sayeed and Raj Kumar case. An Article in the India Today Issue Of November 29, 2004 by Murali Krishnan said- "The Government is all set to unveil a comprehensive hostage policy that would prevent terrorist outfits from arm-twisting the administration." The Article hoped that the hostage policy would be "on the lines of those in the US, China and Israel", adding that "The basic premise of the new policy will be a strict "no negotiations" section" What happened to this initiative can be known through another News Article entitled "Shooting in Dark" by CNN-IBN dated August 29, 2009. It says that it was "planned to put in place a new and tough anti-hijack policy" adding that "It promised better coordination among security agencies during a hostage or hijack crisis." But "the proposals were so radical that there was an uproar in Parliament and the Opposition refused to back the policy." The News Article went on to say- "India is good at conceptualising but not as good in executing concepts". It might be of interest to us that many Western European, the US and Russia follow a no-negotiation policy with terrorists. This was best exemplified by the Chechen incidence where despite the loss of life of 100 hostages, the Russian government did not buckle and ended up the operation by finally eliminating/ capturing all the terrorists. Now to give a brief description of the US hostage policy. It clearly states- "The US Government will make no concessions to individuals or groups holding official or private US citizens hostage." At the same time it also says that- "The United States will use every appropriate resource to gain the safe return of US citizens who are held hostage." but "it is US Government policy to deny hostage takers the benefits of ransom, prisoner releases, policy changes, or other acts of concession." The reason cited by USA is also rather clear- "Based upon past experience, the US Government concluded that making concessions that benefit hostage takers in exchange for the release of hostages increased the danger that others will be taken hostage." How much do we agree to the above words? And I hope we remain consistent in all cases of hostage that we face in the days to come as we have been in Inspector Francis Indivar case?
Amitabh Thakur IPS, Currently at IIM Lucknow # 94155-34526
