Loopholes in police claims?

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, DEC. 26. The recovery of an AK-56 rifle, four handgrenades, two magazines and 32 cartridges from behind the Red Fort has exposed loopholes in the claims of police, intelligence agencies and the Army that they had thoroughly combed the area following the December 22 attack by terrorists.

The acting Commissioner of Delhi Police, Mr R.K. Sharma, was at pains today to explain the recovery from the very place which the Delhi police had earlier claimed to have searched thoroughly.

Though at a press conference he claimed that the recovery was made from ``some bushes'' near the ground outside the fort, the officer was unable to explain how such a large quantity of arms and ammunition had gone unnoticed during the search operations.

The seizure has thus gone to prove that the Delhi police had not done their job properly even after the Red Fort episode had exposed lacunae in the security set-up. Worse, while the police claimed to have also deployed the dog squad for sniffing at the place, they had still not been able to locate the arms, which were lying on the ground inside the bushes and were not even buried.

There is also suspicion over the police contention that the terrorists had left an AK-56 weapon at Vijay Ghat, which was recovered by the police on December 23 morning. Why would two terrorists leave their weapons at two different places when they could have easily left the assault rifle with the other material? Also, the police have not been able to give a reasonable explanation of how and why the two terrorists would have crossed the busy Ring Road towards Vijay Ghat if they had to flee in an autorickshaw, as this was again a time-consuming process and they were actually running against time.

The manner in which all six of the Lashkar-e-Toiba ``fidayeen'' had entered the Red Fort from the manned Lahore Gate with arms tucked inside their jackets has also raised questions on the nature of security provided by the Army authorities.

The role of the Army in the entire exercise also assumes importance since they are the ones being targeted by the Lashkar- e-Toiba. There are intelligence reports that the terrorists may next target some Army personnel sitting on railway platforms.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : `No review of cricket tour'
Next     : BJP executive to study civic poll results