Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09MUMBAI261
2009-06-18 05:49:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Consulate Mumbai
Cable title:  

MAHARASHTRA CONGRESS GOVERNMENT SUBMITS PARTIAL REPORT ON

Tags:  PGOV PTER PINS IN 
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RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
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



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