NEW DELHI: “Make them bleed.” This is what Indian intelligence agencies picked up while intercepting chatter between a terror module in Pakistan and its handlers.
Two days later, on October 10, the Entrepreneurship Development Institute in Pampore, J&K was hit.
Intelligence agencies are not lucky always and Army units on the border do not have trained interpreters to translate chatter. Though shortage of trained men to interpret Urdu, Pashtun and Dari has existed for long, it is hurting the most now as agencies are picking up frequent chatter after the Sep 29 surgical strikes.
Officers are taught linguistics at the Army training centre in MP and the School of Foreign Language in Delhi. However, most choose lucrative French, German or Italian courses to get foreign postings. Those fluent in Urdu form less than one per cent of Army personnel.
“There is a huge difference between spoken and learnt language. To pick every word, you need an expert. Signal intelligence lacks these experts,” an officer explained.
So, by the time the chatter is translated, crucial ‘actionable’ time lapses.