A laughing stock: Humiliation for India after intelligence bungle wrongly pinpoints Pakistan shopkeepers as likely terror suspects
By AMAN SHARMA
PUBLISHED: 23:52 GMT, 10 May 2012 | UPDATED: 01:25 GMT, 11 May 2012
A terror alert a week ago brought back chilling memories of the 26/11 multiple strikes that saw Mumbai coming under siege in 2008.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) input stated that five Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) operatives, in the age group of 25-30 and armed with fake identity cards, had supposedly sneaked into the country to carry out audacious attacks on several sensitive installations in Maharashtra as well as Gujarat.
The tip-off appeared even more credible because colour photographs of the five youths were circulated, though without the details of their identities. Security agencies were predictably in the finger-on-the-trigger mode and the electronic media flashed pictures of the 'deadly' five.
On Thursday, however, leading Pakistani newspapers such as Dawn and The Express Tribune took potshots at the Indian security establishment, claiming that two of the men being projected as terrorists were small-time shopkeepers and one a guard in Lahore, and that none of them had ever ventured out of the country.
The comedic turn of events suggests that the IB had issued a false alarm. What is worse, the entire exercise threatens to weaken India's case on cross-border terror against Pakistan. But former IB chief Ajit Doval said it would not be right to call the alert a hoax and raised doubts about Pakistan. 'What is the guarantee that Pakistan is not telling a lie?
A view of a refinery at Jamnagar, some 400kms west of Ahmedabad
There are some parameters of issuing an alert it is issued after reliable information is gathered. How do you describe a goof-up? It would have been a goofup if there was action or arrest of innocent people. A mere alert is not a goof-up,' Doval said.
The alert circulated to various states last Thursday spoke of a terrifying conspiracy in the making.
It said the five highly trained men were planning to target the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the National Defence Academy in Pune, prominent oil installations in Maharashtra and Gujarat, the Bombay Port Trust, naval installations and even a bridge on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. The IB input also spoke of the five terrorists trying to hire a ferry to attack Mumbai from the sea route akin to the 26/11 modus operandi.
The photographs of the five were distributed to all police stations in the states concerned as Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat and Delhi were put on high alert on Wednesday. Security was beefed up at all sensitive installations, including NDA. But the trio highlighted by the Pakistani print media apparently turned up at a police station in Lahore for 'protection' after seeing their own photos on TV.
They told the police there that far from slipping into India, they had never set foot outside Lahore and were peace-abiding Pakistani citizens.
The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay is another vital installation mentioned in the IB advisory as a potential target of the terrorists
This gave the dailies in the neighbouring country ample fodder to engage in India-bashing. Dawn and The Express Tribune lambasted the Indian government for a 'false alert'. They stated that Atif **** and Mehtab **** sold mobile phones in a Lahore market and Baber Shabbir was a security guard who did not even have a passport.
These three panicked on Wednesday night after seeing their photographs being flashed on Indian TV channels and being depicted as hardened terrorists. A fortnight ahead of Union home secretary R.K. Singh's visit to Pakistan for bilateral talks, the home ministry vehemently denied any goof-up, claiming that its operation to nab the five dangerous LeT terrorists whose photographs had been circulated was still on.
Singh said: 'The advisory was based on credible information. We stand by that. As far as the contents of the advisory are concerned, we do not comment on ongoing matters.' Top home ministry sources insisted that it may be a case of the trio turning up at the Lahore police station bearing a strong resemblance to the men in the photographs.
They were of the view that the actual terrorists could very much be hiding in India, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
The IB claims that the National Defence Academy at Khadakwasla in Pune and the Reliance oil refinery (pictured) in Jamnagar are on the radar of the five LeT men who have sneaked in to India from Pakistan
But The Express Tribune sought to rubbish such explanations. 'Atif **** has been running a mobile phone business for the last 10 years under the banner of Sun Mobiles in Shop number 25 at Lahore's popular electronic market, Hafeez Centre. Mehtab **** has been running a mobile phone business in shop number 25 in the same market for the last 12 years.
Baber Shabbir says he has been employed as a security guard at the shopping plaza for the past five years,' it reported on Thursday.
Dawn described it as anti-Pakistan propaganda and quoted the additional superintendent of police of Gulberg in Lahore as saying that the matter had been forwarded to the cyber-crime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency of Pakistan to ascertain how Indian media had access to the Pakistani nationals' photographs.
C. Uday Bhaskar, a leading strategic affairs expert, said it was a complex development. 'This is a learning curve which calls for establishment of protocols between the intelligence agencies of two countries with whom information can be shared to avoid such situations,' he pointed out.
Union home ministry officials, meanwhile, claimed they saw the episode as a tactic on the part of Pakistan to put pressure on India before the talks scheduled for May 24-25 in Pakistan.
The ministry has strong reasons to defend the alert. Just last Saturday, both home minister P. Chidambaram and Singh had cited this tip-off before chief ministers and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to justify the need for a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC). But the ministry's record is far from perfect.
Last April, when home secretaries of both countries had met in India, it handed over a list of 50 most wanted terrorists to Pakistan. India said it believed these men were hiding in Pakistan. However, it was later revealed that two of the wanted men - Firoz Abdul Rashid Khan and Khan Wazhuk Kamar were, in fact, present in India.
Firoz was cooling his heels in an Indian jail, while Kamar had been arrested but was out on bail.
A revised list was later submitted to Pakistan after deducting these names but the home ministry blamed the CBI for the lapse.
Traders dubbed Lashkar operatives 'never left Pakistan'
Mehtab ****, a middle-aged trader at Lahore's largest cellphone and computer accessory market, thought it was a joke when his friend told him that his photo was appearing on a TV channel.
'But then I saw it myself. I was shocked to see the report that claimed that I was a terrorist and had sneaked into Mumbai,' he said over the phone from his shop at Hafeez Centre, a busy shopping complex in the city's upscale Gulberg area. That was late in the afternoon on Wednesday.
'I contacted the head of the traders' association at Hafeez Centre, took him into confidence and then along with other traders, went to the nearby Liberty police station to bring it on record that I was present in Lahore and not in Mumbai, as being falsely reported,' Mehtab said.
The Hafeez Centre in Lahore where two of the traders run shops and one is a guard
He has been running his shop for the past 14 years and has never travelled to India, he claimed, and added: 'I don't know who took my photo that appeared in the Indian media and when.
'Atif ****, a young man in his twenties who also runs a cellphone shop at the Hafeez Centre, and Babar Shabbir, a private security guard at the complex, are also similarly puzzled as to how their photos reached India and why they were linked to the terror alert.
'I don't have any enmity or a conflict with anyone. I also do not remember having posed for the picture that has appeared in the Indian media,' Atif said. 'I want to tell the entire world that I am living and working in Lahore and am not in Mumbai.' He said linking innocent, ordinary citizens with terrorism was tantamount to putting their lives at risk.
'Why should somebody link me to terrorism is beyond my comprehension, but I certainly fear for my safety now,' he added. Officials and analysts in Pakistan are also worried at the false alarm.
'We have always asked India to not speak to us through the media. We have so many channels for interaction open now and they (the Indians) should use them before going public with information that later turns out to be false or unsubstantiated,' said a senior interior ministry official in Islamabad.
He added that 'false and unsubstantiated allegations lead to perpetuating the public perception in Pakistan' that India has always levelled baseless allegations against it. 'We need to be careful when handling a sensitive subject like terrorism,' he said. Dr Abid Suleri, an Islamabad-based analyst, said exchanging allegations through the media always vitiated the atmosphere between India and Pakistan.
'And when these allegations fall flat on their face, people come up with all kinds of conspiracy theories and hate-mongering,' he added.
Read more:
India bungles while Pakistan laughs: Shopkeepers and guard among 'LeT' men in IB's terror alert | Mail Online
What a mockery! But why did our Anchor Mubasher Luqman get grilled for holding a show on this?....Is our Govt more concerned about RAW and India, than Pakistan?
