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Wednesday, Jun 17, 2009
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National

Secrecy over lapses

Meena Menon

MUMBAI: There seems to be a reversal of roles in Maharashtra. In 1998, it was the members of the Congress who tore up the Action Taken Report (ATR) of the Srikrishna Commission on the Mumbai riots of 1992-93. The ruling saffron alliance reluctantly tabled the report in the assembly in August 1998, six months after it was submitted by Justice B.N. Srikrishna. The assembly rejected the report as it was “one-sided.”

The report clearly indicted the ruling Shiv Sena for the bloodiest riots the city had witnessed.

It is now the turn of the Opposition to bay for the blood of the ruling Congress alliance. The report of the two- member committee, which probed the lapses by the police during the November 26 terror attacks, was not tabled in the assembly session. Instead, the government tabled an ATR of the report and it claims it has not “entirely accepted” the report. Did the Mumbai police and government perform its role during the Mumbai terror attacks of November 26? The

Opposition Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) certainly did not think so. In the winter session of the State Assembly in December 2008, in Nagpur, Sena’s Ramdas Kadam and BJP’s Gopinath Munde caused a commotion making allegations that the police were inept and sleeping on the job.

The new Chief Minister, Ashok Chavan, then hastily assured them that a high-powered committee would be set up to probe the role of the people Mr. Kadam and Mr. Munde said should be sacked. They were the then Director-General of Police, Maharashtra, A.N. Roy, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor and the then Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Chitkala Zutshi. While initially Mr. Chavan said that the committee would probe the roles of these three officials, the committee’s terms of reference were considerably broader as R.D. Pradhan who headed it, told the media in May.

The two members — Mr. Pradhan, former Union Home Secretary and V. Balachandran, former Special Secretary with Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) — examined the roles of the police and also the intelligence lapses and made recommendations. At the press conference held last month, Mr. Pradhan said the Mumbai police did its best in a “war-like” situation. He dodged all questions related to lapses in the performance of the police or the government. On the contrary, he praised the police and put the blame on the lack of direct intelligence information. However, the report clearly did not give the police a clean chit as it was made out to be.

A few days before the ATR was tabled in the Assembly, Mr. Gafoor was shunted off to the Maharashtra Police Housing Department and ironically the head of State Intelligence D. Shivanandan, was appointed to head the city police.

Surprise choice

Since intelligence or lack of it was one of the main reasons the attacks took everyone by surprise, it is curious that Mr. Shivanandan should be chosen to head the city police force. Mr Gafoor clearly is the fall guy for this government, which was first pushed into ordering an inquiry into official lapses and then clearly not too keen on making it public citing lame excuses.

The report praises Mr Rakesh Maria, joint commissioner of police (Crime) who was manning the control room, for his exemplary work. Mr Roy no longer heads the state police and Ms Zutshi, who was trapped in the Taj Mahal hotel, has retired.

Some questions remain. What about the roles of Mr. Roy and other senior police officials? What is the kind of leadership they have inspired to be spared by the committee? What about the lapses at the Cama hospital encounter where three senior policemen were killed by the two terrorists? The government has resorted to its favourite mechanism of appointing a committee but of what use is such a committee when the contents are not made public.

One person who is fighting to learn the truth is Ms Vinita Kamte, the wife of the late additional commissioner of police (east) Mr Ashok Kamte who was killed in the attack. Ms Kamte has filed an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act demanding the call records of her husband to the police control room. She has information that the control room did not respond to calls for additional reinforcements and that is one of the reasons her husband and other officers lost their lives that night. Ms Kamtes request has been rejected once and she has gone into appeal. She claims there are missing portions in the log sheets. The Pradhan committee only examined officials, and did not interview anyone else, due to reasons of time. Some of the recommendations of the committee are in place already and it is difficult to understand why this hastily done job was necessary in the first place.

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