'Police needs to be strengthened to tackle urban terrorism'

The police force in India needs to be strengthened and empowered to tackle the threat of urban terrorism, a security expert said today.
"To tackle big scale of urban terrorism, police force needs to be made a vital force on local level," said Srinath Raghavan, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, speaking at the Tata LitFest here.
"Police reforms commission is widely talked about. But there is a lot of corruption in this force. They are not getting proper training to tackle terrorism-like situation," Raghavan said.
He was speaking at a session on 'Can terrorism be constrained by peaceful means?'.

US-based relationship counsellor and writer John Gray and former Indian Army officer and strategic affairs expert Maroof Raza were also present.
Among the democratic countries, the number of police personnels in India was very small, Raghavan said, adding "we need to think more about it".
Raza said police are used to battle terrorism, but there is no focus on their training.
"Police leadership itself is disconnected completely with the reality," Raza said.