Air Cmde Pervez Hamilton Khokhar’s gruesome death in a gated community in Bangalore is not some off-way crime, but may be something lot more sinister. This stalwart of the Tejas LCA programme — its former director — was still helping out, his expert advice sought to fine tune the design and in its translation to production. Those in the know say his murderers were after documents they thought he might have at his home or for information he was unwilling to part with. There have been other such incidents in the past. Such as the murder in suspicious circumstances some years back of the chief engineer as also the chief artificer in the submarine building group at Vizag, who were then involved in constructing the Arihant SSBN. The fact is a lot of engineers and scientists working on sensitive projects have been bumped off, and there’s not a murmur out of government circles. This is not the stuff for the local police to investigate but murder for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take up. Why are our people such as Khokar left vulnerable, why is there no NIA team attached to sensitive projects? Attachment of FBI agents to highly-sensitive US projects is the norm. In the UK, Special Branch agents cover critical projects. Why is there no such arrangement in India? Shouldn’t NIA be tasked with the protection of prized Indian talent? One way to cripple a country’s advance is, quite literally, to kill off its talent. The Indian Govt and NIA better get on, and stay on, the job, fast.