Mumbai probe fiasco: bad intelligence or poor media?
By Jawed Naqvi
Monday, 16 Nov, 2009 THE Americans have caught two men for plotting attacks in India and the Netherlands. One of the suspects is an American, the other a Canadian of Pakistani origin. According to the Indian media both men are linked to the Mumbai terror attacks of last November.
At least one Indian paper has blamed poor Indian intelligence for not unearthing the important lead themselves. They had to wait for the Americans to unravel the sinister plot, which may have had grave implications for Indias security and for its future ties with Pakistan.
But what have the Indian media themselves done to help with the Mumbai probe? They cant say it is not their business. Just across the border, it was the Pakistani media that exposed the lie that was being dished out by their government and state institutions that Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving suspect in the Mumbai attack, was not a Pakistani. It was the Pakistani media that provided the clinching proof of Kasabs Pakistani identity to the chagrin of their government. It was Pakistani TV and newspaper journalists who exposed the lie. They deserve to be applauded for helping the Mumbai probe.
The Indian media can legitimately plead that they didnt know enough to reveal anything of consequence. Of course, it is often the case that what they do know they do not always share with the public. That is how the audio-visual details of the terror attack were made available by a British channel, not an Indian one.
Murdochian media everywhere is an acknowledged part of the system, often an extension of the state. In India senior editors are often too busy vying for a Raja Sabha seat to play the peoples sentinel. Barring a few exceptions, much of the so-called mainstream media cannot claim to be the peoples watchdog it once was.
That the Mumbai attack was possible because of poor intelligence is a fact acknowledged by Indian intelligence agencies. So theres no point accusing someone who has already confessed to a failure. The Indian media, however, have not said mea culpa, not yet. There are some ways by which they could yet redeem themselves.
One way would be to heed important questions raised by the wife of Hemant Karkare, the head of Maharashtras anti-terror squad who was killed under mysterious circumstances on the first night of the three-day reign of terror in Mumbais Colaba district. The latest query raised by Kavita Karkare a brave and candid lady of rare grace pertains to the mystery of her husbands missing bullet-proof jacket. What happened to the dead police officers bullet-proof vest? It may hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death.
According to a new book by a former chief of Inspector General of the Maharashtra Police, there are strong reasons to bifurcate the terror attacks into two separate episodes and to investigate them separately. One part of the attacks had a Pakistani connection. These took place in two hotels and a Jewish hostel in a posh area of the Colaba district. The other attacks happened at a busy railway station and in its vicinity. Most people were killed and injured there. Mr Karkare was also killed in the same area off the Rangabhavan Lane.
The book Who killed Karkare? The real face of terrorism in India by S.M. Mushrif raises questions on the basis of the media coverage of the sensational crime that went on for almost three full days. Mushrif has himself predicted what the fate of the book is likely to be. It will be either ignored or it will be trashed without being read. I read it in bits and found it asking pertinent questions about the terror attack that brought the peace process between India and Pakistan to a grinding halt and which killed a pivotal officer investigating Indias own rightwing upper caste extremists.
Mushrif brings out an intense rivalry between the countrys external spy agency RAW and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). He squarely blames the IB for allegedly withholding information provided by RAW about the imminent attack on Mumbai. Karkare, a secular police officer, had worked for RAW before his assignment as head of the ATS.
Subhash Gatade also asks some of the questions raised by Mushrif. In an article carried by Communalism Combat, Gatade noted how before him the ATS had earned lot of disrepute - especially in the eyes of the minority - for its functioning.
The manner in which it had handled the Nanded bomb blasts (April 2006) or Malegaon bomb blasts and also the bomb blasts in local trains (2007) had come under scanner. Perhaps the powers that be were keen that someone with a professional approach takes up the mantle and Hemant Karkare was found to be the ideal person for it. One can presume that there were strong political considerations behind this choice as the secular image of the parties in power - at the state and the centre - had taken a lot of hit because of these mishandlings.
And Karkare demonstrated in a short span of time that he meant business, says Gatade. It was evident in the manner in which he led the investigations into the bomb blasts in Gadkari Rangayatan, Thane and Panvel (June 2008) and ultimately nabbed the Hindutva terrorists belonging to the Sanatan Sanstha and filed a few hundred page charge-sheet against the accused in the stipulated time.
Looking back it is clear that if the ATS would have been led by any other person who was less professional, it would have been impossible to expose the machinations of this spiritual cult for whom destruction of evil-doers was part of spiritual practice. Although the main charge-sheet against the accused did not contain names of the Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janjagruti Samity to which they belonged, he had promised in an interview that in a supplementary charge-sheet this omission would be corrected. It is a different matter that the day did not arrive, Gatade said.
Kavita - Karkares wife - had learnt from newspapers that leaders of RSS, BJP, VHP and Shiv Sena were trying all possible means to decelerate the pace of investigations and were exerting lot of direct-indirect pressure on Karkare to go slow with the investigations. A few amongst them had even accused ATS of being on a witch-hunt and some had even demanded that ATS officers should be subjected to narco-analysis to establish their motives.
Lal Kishan Advani, BJPs prime ministerial candidate had even demanded a change in the ATS and an enquiry into the torture accusations made by the accused. All the top leaders of the BJP-Shiv Sena - who swore by the Indian constitution - had no qualms in declaring full support to the perpetrators and even arranging legal support for them.
In a write-up - The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Need For A Thorough Investigation, R.H., 08 December, 2008
Educate ! Organize ! Agitate ! -- the author provides details of the inconsistencies in the reports about the killing.
...The earliest reports, presumably relayed from the police via the media, said that Karkare had been killed at the Taj, and Salaskar and Kamte at Metro. If this was not true, why were we told this? And why was the story later changed? Was it because it conflicted with eyewitness accounts? Indeed, under the heading ATS Chief Hemant Karkare Killed: His Last Pics, IBNlive showed footage first of Karkare putting on a helmet and bullet-proof vest, and then a shootout at Metro, where an unconscious man who looks like Karkare and wearing the same light blue shirt and dark trousers (but without any blood on his shirt or the terrible wounds we saw on his face at his funeral) is being pulled into a car by two youths in saffron shirts...
Is there a lead in this that newspapers should ideally follow? Or is it to be dismissed as wild rant of a few perennially disgruntled people? In which case how do we place the latest embarrassing question posed by Kavita Karkare?
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