Disturbing message from Mumbai

Time to restructure intelligence set-up
by T.V. Rajeswar

After the July 13 serial bomb blasts people of Mumbai are asking: Why again and again, and how long are we to suffer? Mumbai had suffered the most serious terrorist attack by Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives under the direction of Pakistan’s ISI on November 26, 2008. And so far no one has been punished in Pakistan.
ISI operative David Headley and American-Canadian Tahawwur Husain Rana have given detailed accounts of the ISI operations relating to Mumbai. One of the jihadis who constituted the attacking team in Mumbai on 26/11, Ajmal Kasab, was captured alive. The Indian security authorities, Pakistan and the US are aware of the complete account which Kasab narrated during his trial in a Mumbai court. Sentenced to death, he is now in a high security prison awaiting further judicial procedures.
The Pakistani culprits who are being prosecuted there for their role in the 26/11 killings are having an easy time. There is hardly any progress in the case. A series of folders have been handed over to Pakistan but to no avail. In the initial stage, the Pakistan Foreign Secretary blithely characterised the dossiers as literature from India. Former Pakistan Foreign Minister Rahman Malik had promised cooperation. The excuse for the delay in the disposal of the case is the unhelpful attitude of the Pakistani judiciary.
Earlier Mumbai suffered major serial bomb blasts in 1993 which were characterised as a revenge attack on India after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. These blasts were suspected to have been organised and executed by Dawood Ibrahim, who had taken shelter in Karachi under the protection of Pakistan Then there were serial train blasts in 2003 and again bomb blasts in 2006.
The latest terrorist attack in Mumbai has a strange story to tell. The Home Minister as well as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra stated that there was no question of intelligence failure since there were no intelligence inputs.  It is a strange logic, but the fact remains that there were no advance warnings to the Mumbai Police or the Maharashtra state about the likelihood of bomb blasts by terrorist elements in Mumbai around July 13.This is the crux of the problem, the complete absence of intelligence inputs about the possibility of a terrorist attack in Mumbai.
The Maharashtra Chief Minister spoke of his government’s proposal to instal a large number of CCTV cameras in the metropolis. Several CCTV cameras, which are already installed, had yielded some footage and the police chief heading the ATS has promised to release the sketch of one of the suspects.
While all these may lead to the arrest of the suspected terrorists sooner or later, the most important issue is about fine-tuning the state machinery for the collection of advance intelligence before the incident occurs. Mr Ram Pradhan, who headed an enquiry team after the 26/11 attacks, has rightly emphasised the need for intensifying the role of the beat constable who walks around the streets and lanes, meeting people of different strata. Intelligence inputs have to emanate from these constables. Traditionally, the police and intelligence officers build up their sources among the various communities so as to collect the required information about suspects and their activities.  
After the latest bomb blasts, the Maharashtra security authorities have not zeroed in on any specific suspect as yet. There is a wide range of suspects belonging to the Indian Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the HUJI of Bangladesh. Security personnel have been sent to interrogate a well-known bomb maker, now in an Ajmer jail, and some suspects from Azamgarh in UP.  Suspects from Kerala, Gujarat, Jharkhand, etc, are all earmarked for enquiry and interrogation.
This is, to put it mildly, a wild goose chase.  This is the biggest weakness of the Indian security set-up as of today.  The national grid of intelligence and counter-terrorism about which the Home Minister has spoken extensively is yet to come into being.
An outraged Lord Meghnad Desai from London commented, “Here we go again; first 26/11 and now 13/7. Mumbaikars will have to fall back on their famed ability to cope with adversity without any help from the authorities.” Of course, we know who committed these atrocities, but we will not do anything about this. Polite notes will be sent to Pakistan by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Home Ministry. Alas, the reality is that Pakistan can quasi-officially perpetrate these atrocities as the whole saga of Headley and Rana proved in a Chicago court. On the Indian side, the effectiveness in fighting these actions is still not there. Why is the Indian State so soft?  
Nothing seems to have improved since 26/11. How many more must die before India comes to realise that human lives matter more than anything else?  In the case of the 26/11 blasts, the Headley/Rana trial has given ample evidence to establish who are behind these terrorist atrocities.  Headley had a free run of the country and no agency in India spotted him till the Americans nabbed him.
This may happen again. Some Lashkar or jihadi group enjoying Pakistan’s financial support may attack India again.
This painful message having serious dimensions has been conveyed by the Mumbai serial blasts. Can India be sure of preventing such attacks in any of its metropolitan cities again? Can anyone in the security set-up, either at the national level or at the state level, assert and answer, “Yes, India can.” 
The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Intelligence Bureau may consider convening a special conference of intelligence authorities from all the states and discuss the dire need for building a preventive intelligence machinery from the grassroots level. This is necessary to ensure that such attacks do not happen again and that those who are conspiring are arrested in good time before the mischief is committed.  This is a tall expectation, but not impossible.
Merely blaming the Karachi Project of Pakistan — whereby men of the Indian Mujahideen and other jihadist terrorists are given shelter in Karachi —cannot help. David Headley has given considerable details about Karachi gangsters. He has actually spoken of two distinct competing jihadi groups targeting India, and both are headquartered in Karachi. Moreover, the Lashkar chief, Hafiz Saeed, has spoken of launching an all-out war in Kashmir, attacking the Bhakra Nangal dam project and other such targets. But the Pakistani authorities have refused to react to these utterances.
Notwithstanding the latest meetings between the Foreign Secretaries and the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan, there is no possibility of any progress in the matter of resolving the issue of cross-border terror originating from Pakistan.  
India has to set its own house in order by restructuring the intelligence-gathering mechanism to ensure that terrorist attacks like those experienced in Mumbai are prevented to the extent possible.
The writer, a former Governor of UP and West Bengal, is a retired chief of the Intelligence Bureau.