MUMBAI, 8 November 2006 — Britain will teach India how to track people behaving suspiciously on public transport systems and lend technological help to prevent attacks, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said yesterday.
The cooperation is part of a counterterrorism pact between the two countries who will also share security information about protecting the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and the 2012 Olympics in London, she said.
“We can help with our particular techniques and programs to pick out any suspicious kind of behavior on public transport systems,” Beckett told a news conference in Mumbai, after meeting Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and other senior government officials including Mumbai police chief A.N. Roy and discussed issues relating to terrorism.
Both countries have faced some of the most deadly attacks on public transport systems in recent times — 56 people were killed in London last year when bombs exploded on underground trains while over 200 died in serial blasts on commuter trains in India’s commercial center of Mumbai in July.
“We now have quite a good deal of experience in studying such events and, for instance, in the use of CCTVs and monitoring,” she said, referring to surveillance cameras.
Although there are no known direct links between the London and Mumbai attacks, security experts say victims of such attacks need to work together to draft strategies to counter what they say is a global network of militant groups.
“We have shared information with them and we will benefit from their experience,” A.N. Roy, Mumbai’s police chief, told reporters. “British officers have visited us and another team will be here tomorrow to have more discussions on our methods.”
While the London blasts were blamed on British Muslim suicide bombers, India has charged Pakistan’s military spy agency of plotting the Mumbai blasts and militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of executing them with the help of Indian Muslims.
Pakistan and Lashkar have denied any links with the blasts.
