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Opposition puts government in the dock over terror attacks

NAGPUR: Coming soon after the November 26 terror attacks on Mumbai, the first week of the winter session of the Maharashtra legislature saw plenty of fireworks. The Opposition put the new government on the mat with its trenchant criticism of the security and intelligence failure and police inaction.

Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ramdas Kadam and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Gopinath Munde both took hawkish positions and Mr. Kadam demanded that India go to war with Pakistan on the terror issue.

Mr. Munde said Chief Minister Ashok Chavan should meet the Prime Minister and demand the bombing of the terrorist training camps across the border. The Shiv Sena and the BJP relentlessly targeted the government.

Home Minister Jayant Patil, in his otherwise detailed reply to the House, skirted the issue of police corruption as well as the allegations made by the Opposition which spoke of a vertical split in the state police force and said it was riddled with factional fighting and politics.

Mr. Chavan announced a high level probe into the role of the three senior officials, Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) A.N. Roy, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor and Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Chitkala Zutshi.

The debate on the terror attacks and security started on December 16, a day after the session began and went on for the next three days. Members in the Assembly spoke for 13 hours on the issue.

Mr. Kadam said he was out all night visiting various places under attack and he was trying to find out where Mr. Gafoor was the next morning [November 27]. “I was told he was sleeping in a vehicle near the Oberoi hotel and at around 11.30 am I found his car and knocked on the window. The Commissioner rolled down the window and he did not know what was happening,” Mr. Kadam said.

The Opposition has been targeting Mr. Gafoor and Mr. Roy since the attacks. Mr. Munde said Mr. Gafoor did not visit the spot till after 12.30 a.m. that night, while Mr. Roy was in the control room till 1.30 a.m. He said the police were vertically split and was riddled with corruption, factionalism and politics. The police force was weakened by this factional fighting and even the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) and the Crime Branch were at loggerheads.

The Chief Minister said he did not want to go into the blame game.

The Home Minister defended the terror probe being given to the Crime Branch instead of the ATS though the reasons were not specific. Even suspended Congressman Narayan Rane took the government to task for not probing the links between the underworld and the politicians.

Mr. Rane who has not lost an opportunity to attack the ruling regime, said not once in the past had the Cabinet discussed the security issue and even the state disaster control room was in a shambles. He reiterated that terrorists had inside help.

He referred to the N.N. Vohra Committee which was set up to probe the links between politicians and criminals and said some of its contents were never made public. Unless this nexus was exposed, there was no use fighting terrorism, he said.

He also raised the issue of an accused under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA) Tariq Parveen being present at Mr. Ashok Chavan’s first interaction with party members at Azad Maidan. He said he had video tapes to prove that Parveen was present.

“What was a wanted man doing there at the party meeting,” he asked the Assembly.

He did not spare the police either and said that inspector-level officers were deciding who would be the next police commissioner of Mumbai.

Mr. Patil, who initially denied that the state had received any intelligence advisories, did a turnaround and accepted that they were sent to the Naval authorities. Even the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram has accepted “lapses in security.”

During the session, the tenor of the Opposition’s arguments and the language used was questionable. For instance, most Opposition members wanted a public hanging of the terrorist suspect who has been caught alive, and also made communal remarks which had to be expunged by the House with respect to Union Minister A.R. Antulay’s allegations.

While several measures have been taken to fight terror attacks, among them a Rs. 127-crore plan to modernise the police with weapons and gear and raise a battalion on the lines of the National Security Guard (NSG), crucial issues dealing with cleaning up the mess in the police force, fighting communalism, upgrading intelligence and security remain unanswered. Clearly the government has to take some tough steps instead of merely being on the defensive.

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