'It's our intel failure'

Senior NCP leaderu00a0castigates attitude of police and Intelligence Agencies; Oppn Leader says that Mumbai is 'bhagwan bharose'

Before the State Assembly touched off the 13/7 blasts discussion yesterday, hardly anybody expected that a senior member from the ruling coalition would use the opportunity to rail at the attitude of the state police and its failure on several fronts.

While participating in the discussion over an adjournment motion moved by the BJP-led Opposition, former labour minister and senior NCP member Nawab Malik created a sensation in the house when he said there was hardly any coordination among the state and central intelligence agencies.

Malik pegged the criticism on an incident during his days as a member of the state cabinet in 2003. "During my meeting with a senior IB officer at his office, I asked what they were doing about the breakaway group from SIMI that was adopting the extremist path. The officer responded by saying he was not aware of it.
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He then asked me where those SIMI members were who raised an alarm over the actions of the breakaway group."

Malik then told the House, "We do not get proper leads from our intelligence. We hope to get it from the US, a country whose network has hardly had any basic information. It's our intelligence failure."

Malik's comments were received with a resounding thumping of desks from the treasury as well as ruling benches.

He held forth, "Terrorist activities cannot be controlled by purchasing special armour vehicles in military colours. Neither can it be reined in by recruitment of 50,000 policemen. Our forces need to adopt technical expertise and monitoring skills."

Incidentally, Malik also demanded a complete ban on visits by politicians to blast victims as it creates chaos in hospitals.

At God's mercy
Also, at the beginning of the debate, the Leader of the Opposition, Eknath Khadse, made a scathing remark aimed at the Home Department, saying the state government had lost confidence in facing the menace of terrorism.
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"Mumbai has become insecure but its residents have no choice but to stick on. A city like this is living bhagwan bharose," he said.

"The state's disaster management plan for emergency situations was not ready. Not a single meeting was arranged with Ram Pradhan after the committee headed by him submitted its report," Khadse alleged.

Patil's defence
In his defence, Home Minister RR Patil announced recruitment of 13,000 policemen to boost the security arrangement following the blasts. "Our police strength is comparatively less than that in Punjab and Delhi.

Starting September, we will begin recruiting more policemen," said Patil.

He continued defensively, "I should have discussed the security issue with Ram Pradhan. I also feel that he could have written to me. I wouldn't have ignored it (the letter)."

He announced that he and the leader of the Opposition would visit London to study modern security practices. He also advocated the need to discipline the city.
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"It adds 150 new slums every day and illegal hawkers and uncontrollable crowd have been making things even more difficult," he rued.