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No commission set up to investigate total organisational failure

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A year later, India is still a soft state

A year down the line no individual has been held accountable for the monumental blunders of 26/11. In a country which institutes commissions of inquiry at the drop of a hat, amazingly no formal commission was set up to investigate the total organisational failure of our security set-up. The Ram Pradhan inquiry was confined to looking into the responses of the Mumbai police. And even the findings of that were not made public.

By Coomi Kapoor

A year down the line no individual has been held accountable for the monumental blunders of 26/11. In a country which institutes commissions of inquiry at the drop of a hat, amazingly no formal commission was set up to investigate the total organisational failure of our security set-up. The Ram Pradhan inquiry was confined to looking into the responses of the Mumbai police. And even the findings of that were not made public.

Last November the whole world watched in amazement as Indian television provided an embarrassing, 24/7 coverage of the country's vulnerability. Less than a dozen terrorists brought the country to a virtual standstill for three days. While we all sat glued to our television sets, government agencies acted like a bunch of Keystone cops. Former US envoy's Ronen Sen's favourite phrase "headless chickens" was certainly very apt.

In this tragedy of errors, just about everything which could have gone wrong went horribly awry. First the Coast Guard and the Navy allowed the boat carrying terrorists to enter Mumbai unhindered, even after they had been alerted by RAW of the possibility of the arrival of terrorists by the sea route and given the date on which the boat left Karachi.

When the local fishermen saw the terrorists calmly alight from the boat, they tried to warn the nearest police post of suspicious movements, but no one paid heed. Antiquated rifles supplied to the Mumbai cops could not match the sophisticated fire power of the terrorists armed with AK 47s and grenades. The few bullet proof jackets available to our policemen, turned out to be reject supplies.

There was no coordinated plan by the Mumbai police. The ATS chief and two other senior police officers were gunned down by two terrorists within hours thanks to the general confusion. From the recent interview of the former Mumbai police commissioner Hasan Gafoor to 'The Week' magazine it appears there were additional behind- the- scenes glitches. The local police and the marine commandos squabbled about who should storm the Taj hotel, with the commandos declining, insisting that they took part only in off-shore operations. The former police commissioner claims that four senior Mumbai police officers refused to obey orders and remain in the line of fire to take on the terrorists. (Gafoor, now Director General of Police Housing, withdrew the charge after the four officers threatened to sue for defamation.)

Our crack NSG commandos arrived in Mumbai and began operations some 12 hours after the siege started. One reason for the delay was that the air crew for the special aircraft could not be located speedily and sanction for the flights had to be first obtained.

The commandos were sent into the hotels, without any well thought out plan. They had no idea of the exact number of terrorists. No one thought of using the help of sophisticated technology to track the exact location of the terrorists. The commandos were literally simply shooting in the dark in all directions.

From the Navy, to the NSG, to the Mumbai police, officials spoke out of turn to the media to give their version and pin the blame on someone else, even as the gunfire battles raged inside the hotels.

At times of crisis the least we expect from the government is to speak in one voice. But no one at the top asked the discordant voices of different authorities to shut up and warned them that they were flouting elementary conduct rules. The media was given no guidelines about what was and what was not in national interest while reporting. Some TV channels may have compromised the security operations with their indiscreet reportage.

To date no one has really been held specifically accountable or punished for 26/11. True, Home Minister Shivraj Patil was removed, but he was an easy scapegoat, since even before the attacks there was a demand for his head because of his clueless performance in the face of a series of earlier terror blasts. Patil, far from being permanently in the dog house, is likely to be installed as a governor shortly. No one in government has explained why he was allowed to handle the sensitive Home portfolio, for over four and a half years, when he was clearly unsuited for the task.

Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was another sacrificial lamb to appease public opinion on the eve of the Parliamentary poll. Deshmukh was simply transferred to the Centre and holds a key ministerial portfolio. The state Home Minister R R Patil - who remarked philosophically about the attack that in a big city such incidents do happen - was axed as home minister shortly after 26\\11. But, he was reinstalled in his old post after the Assembly elections. The then Mumbai Police Commissioner Gafoor was simply transferred.

Many other top officials, who were in one way or another culpable for the combined organisational failure, were left untouched. The National Security Council, headed by the National Security Advisor, should normally have overseen the entire operation. We learn that the NSA stayed on at a private dinner party long after he received the first news of the attack over the telephone.

Our Intelligence Bureau provided no advance warning of the attack and has done no worthwhile follow up investigation into the entire conspiracy. If Kasab's Pakistani identity was established it was thanks to his own confession and help from the Pakistani media. It was the US government which alerted us about the probable involvement of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana. Our agencies were in the dark about their existence. We are still ignorant whether or not some locals in Mumbai gave support to the terrorist, though there were clues to indicate that someone from the hotel staff was involved. The IB chief after his retirement got a sinecure as interlocutor for the North East.

No one from the Navy or Coast Guard appears to have been taken to task. The hotels under attack were not pulled up for not observing all the points mentioned in an advisory sent to them about security regulations by the police. Small wonder that the terrorists look upon India as a soft state.
 
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