MAHARASHTRA CONGRESS GOVERNMENT SUBMITS PARTIAL REPORT ON

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MUMBAI 000261 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PTER PINS IN SUBJECT: MAHARASHTRA CONGRESS GOVERNMENT SUBMITS PARTIAL REPORT ON MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS AS OPPOSITION ACCUSES IT OF SHIEDLING OFFICIALS REF: A. MUMBAI 233 ¶B. MUMBAI 169 ¶C. 2008 MUMBAI 560 MUMBAI 00000261 001.2 OF 004 CONGRESS GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA SUBMITS PARTIAL REPORT ON MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS; OPPOSITION ACCUSES IT OF SHIEDLING OFFICIALS Ref: A) MUMBAI 233; B) MUMBAI 169; C)2008 MUMBAI 560 ¶1. (SBU) Summary. On June 16, nearly seven months after the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the Congress Party led Government of Maharashtra (GOM) submitted to the Maharashtra State Legislature its response paper, known as the Action Taken Report (ATR) on the Pradhan-Balachandran investigation committee's report (PBR) on Mumbai attacks. The GOM did not present the complete findings of the PBR to the Maharashtra legislature, citing the sensitive nature of the report and the ongoing trial of the lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Kasab. Opposition Shiv Sena - Bharatiya Janata Party (SS/BJP) alliance members criticized the GOM for withholding of information and for covering up major security failures. After the attacks, the GOM has made some efforts to modernize the police force and tighten security, but detractors believe that the efforts are too slow and inadequate. Opposition parties will continue to underscore GOM failures, hoping that substandard security would be a campaign issue in the upcoming state elections. End Summary. GOM PRESENTS PARTIAL REPORT -------------- ¶2. (SBU) On June 16, Congress Party - Nationalist Congress Party (Congress/NCP) alliance-led Government of Maharashtra (GOM) submitted only the "Action Taken Report" (ATR); it did not submit the complete inquiry report on Mumbai attacks to the Maharashtra Legislature. The inquiry report was authored by former bureaucrats Ram Pradhan and V. Balachandran (PBR henceforth). The opposition Shiv Sena - Bharatiya Janata Party (SS/BJP) coalition wanted the PBR to be released in its entirety. Their criticism of GOM is based on media leaks of the PBR. Amid mayhem in the legislature, three state legislators from the two opposition parties were suspended for six years by the Speaker for unruly behavior. Analysts viewed this as political posturing before the Maharashtra state elections set for September 2009. The ruling Congress - NCP alliance appears worried that failure to make tangible improvements in Mumbai's security infrastructure would be held against them in the coming election. Meanwhile, the opposition SS/BJP wants to underscore systemic security failures and lack of concrete steps after the Mumbai attacks. Yet, at the same time, they want to be seen as the champions of an over-worked, under-paid police force, 14 members of which were killed fighting the 11/26 attackers. The opposition alleged that the GOM was shielding other guilty officials by not presenting PBR, while Chief Minister Ashok Chavan of the Congress Party said that the PBR could not be released because it had sensitive information, and because it could affect the trial of the lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Kasab (ref B) PBR FINDINGS -------------- MUMBAI 00000261 002.2 OF 004 ¶3. (SBU) V. Balachandran, one of the two authors of PBR (ref A),told Congenoff that individual elements of Mumbai's police showed immense courage in the initial hours of the attacks, especially in the hours before the National Security Guard (NSG) arrived from New Delhi. However, disorganization among the police hampered their efforts. Furthermore, he admitted, senior police officers, instead of directing the operation, rushed to the scene; the deaths of three such officials exacerbated the police's problems. Balachandran also lamented that the police were out-gunned by attackers who were better armed and better trained than they were. Balachandran reported that while there were several warnings about an imminent attack on Mumbai from the central intelligence agencies, none of these warnings constituted actionable intelligence. ¶4. (SBU) Julio Ribeiro, former Mumbai Police Commissioner, told Consul General that while the deaths of the three senior police officials aggravated the police's problems, it nevertheless insulated the police from the public anger that some politicians have faced in the wake of the attacks. Political pundit and Loksatta editor Kumar Ketkar told Congenoffs that the public perception was that the Mumbai political establishment was dazed immediately after the attack; meanwhile central government circles understood the enormity of the situation, but wasted crucial hours in sending commando forces. POLITICAL MANUEVERINGS AFTER THE ATTACK -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Balachandran explained to Congenoff that the PBR also identified Mumbai police failures and ways to correct them. He catalogued 26 failures of the Mumbai police and provided 26 concrete recommendations for improvement. Committee Chair Ram Pradhan handed over the PBR to Ashok Chavan, the Congress chief minister of Maharashtra, on May 27. While admitting that he never read the PBR, the Chief Minister immediately delivered it to a committee headed by the senior bureaucrat in the GOM Home Affairs Ministry to draft the Action Taken Report (ATR) in response to the PBR. The media has suggested that this move was a political tactic to stall a potentially explosive report. According to parliamentary procedure, the Government can submit an ATR, yet withhold the entire report from the state assembly. (Note: This tactic was used in dealing with the Srikrishna Commission Report which detailed Shiv Sena's role and police partisanship in the 1993 anti-Muslim Riots in Mumbai. End Note) ¶6. (SBU) The two senior-most police officials at the time of the attacks were Maharashtra State Police Chief Anami Roy and Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor. While Roy had already been moved to a new posting in March 2009 because of legitimate administrative reasons, Gafoor was not transferred until June 13, just three days before release of the ATR. The state's opposition parties are asserting that Gafoor is being used as a scapegoat, and that transferring Gafoor was merely a cosmetic move by GOM. The committee carried out detailed interviews with Roy, but obtained only limited written answers from Gafoor. The opposition alleges that Roy has had the chance to fully explain his actions during the attacks while Gafoor has not had the chance. Measures Taken to Improve Security -------------- MUMBAI 00000261 003.2 OF 004 ¶7. (SBU) As the political drama continues to unfold, the GOM has started to take steps to improve the security infrastructure of Mumbai. The GOM established a Special Forces unit called "Force One", which is intended to be a Mumbai-based, Quick Response Team of young policemen, with better training and better arms than the ordinary policeman on the street. The unit is intended to serve as a lighter, more mobile version of the NSG commanders (ref A). By mid-May, around 250 candidates were identified for Force One training and are currently being trained in Pune. ¶8. (SUB) Foreign Commercial Service sources indicate that GOM has ordered 1,000 new pistols for the police. Senior Home department official P.K. Jain told Congenoff that GOM has decided to equip two-thirds of the policemen with firearms, a substantial increase from the pre-attack distribution of one gun per three officers. Satish Saheny, another retired police commissioner of Mumbai, however, told us that the ordinary policeman - whether equipped with a gun or a baton - would always be at a disadvantage fighting terrorists. He argued that "At the end of the day, the policeman believes that people are going to listen to him just because he is in uniform. Terrorists will not. We need a crack team of plainclothes people, who will have the mandate to fight terror, and have special training to do it." ¶9. (SBU) Sahney's sentiments seem to reflect the current thinking in some of the higher police echelons in Maharashtra. Recently, the GOM held a special state-wide exam to recruit young officers directly into the ranks of the Local Intelligence Branch (state-level plain-clothes police, LIB),and has to date selected around 100 candidates. Prior to this special recruitment program, the LIB was staffed by police personnel who alternated between LIB and regular police stations. The former home minister R.R. Patil and the current Mumbai police chief D. Shivanandan are the architects of this new direct recruitment program in LIB. Ribeiro warned that even Force One or direct recruitment to intelligence might not find many takers because these recruits would be sealed off from opportunities for extra income through corruption, which only regular police stations offer. However, media reports indicate that the LIB exam had many takers, and that many of the candidates were motivated by the 11/26 attacks. ¶10. (SBU) The GOM has also identified land (some in North Mumbai, and some on the Konkan coast south of the city),to be used to station the National Security Guard (NSG),which ultimately liberated the two hotels. The NSG and the GOI security establishment are mulling over the possibility of establishing NSG hubs in four metro locations in four corners of the country. ¶11. (SBU) From June 8 to 10, the Indian Coast Guard, Mumbai City and Maharashtra State Police, and the Indian Navy carried out a large exercise in sea vessel interception on the Arabian Sea. Maharashtra has a poorly guarded 750 km coastline stretching from Gujarat in the north to Karnataka in the south. The Mumbai attackers were able to exploit this slipshod coverage when they landed on 11/26. The lessons learned from the exercise are at this point undisclosed and have not been reported in media. ¶12. (SBU) Chitkala Zutshi, former home Secretary of Maharashtra, MUMBAI 00000261 004.2 OF 004 told congenoffs that immediately after the attacks, Jayant Patil, the new Home Minister of Maharashtra, developed a new informal mechanism for intelligence sharing. Every Wednesday morning, Patil holds an informal discussion with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI),Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials posted in Mumbai, the Home Secretary, the Maharashtra State Police Chief, and Mumbai City Police Chief, to share intelligence warnings. Prior to the attacks, the Mumbai representatives of the central agencies would write to their Delhi superiors, who would in turn inform the Maharashtra Police Chief. However, Zutshi confirmed the finding of the PBR that actionable intelligence is rarely provided by central agencies. ¶13. (SBU) Comment: In the immediate wake of the attacks, the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra resigned because of public anger (ref C). The legislative wing, believing that not only political leadership but career officials also must face the consequences for their inaction during the attacks, instituted the Pradhan-Balchandran Committee in December 2008. Meanwhile, the GOM made some efforts to equip the police and to tighten the security procedures. But these actions did not happen as fast as independent observers would have liked (ref A). The code of conduct of national elections, in effect from April 3 to May 23rd, gave the GOM additional excuses for delay. But given the nature of Indian bureaucracy, these efforts will continue to move at a glacial pace. The political theatre in the Maharashtra legislature on presenting the ATR is just business as usual. The SS/BJP alliance hopes that though terror and poor security did not provide political mileage in national elections, they may well become issues in state elections due this autumn. End Comment. FOLMSBEE