Gafoor

Mumbai, June 16: The Maharashtra government today swept under the carpet the original report of a committee that probed the 26/11 security lapses, rejecting its principal finding indicting then city police chief Hasan Gafoor for “absence of visible and actual leadership”.

Gafoor was replaced on Saturday by D. Sivanandhan. The government maintains Gafoor was due for promotion, but the timing of the transfer has sparked speculation that he was eased out to take the sting out of the Opposition din when findings of the Ram Pradhan Committee investigating the security lapses were made public.

However, the government today went back on chief minister Ashok Chavan’s promise to table both the Pradhan report and the action-to-be-taken report (ATR) compiled by a panel headed by chief secretary Johny Joseph.

Burying the Pradhan committee’s original 100-page report, the government simply tabled the 18-page ATR in the legislature, triggering pandemonium in both Houses on the last day of the budget session.

Home minister Jayant Patil, who tabled the ATR, said the government had decided not to table the Pradhan report since it contained “confidential” information. The Opposition alleged the government did not table the report because it named three ministers.

“There is no mention of any minister in the report,” Chavan said. “Ministers concerned at the Centre and the state have resigned in the wake of 26/11 attacks, owning moral responsibility,” he said, referring to Shivraj Patil (then Union home minister), Vilasrao Deshmukh (then chief minister) and R.R. Patil (then deputy chief minister).

The ATR, however, cites some of the findings of the Pradhan committee, which lauds Mumbai police but faults Gafoor. “The police commissioner did not show adequate initiative…. During the whole operation, he was stationed at one location near Hotel Oberoi-Trident. There was a lack of co-ordinated and visible control,” says the ATR, quoting from the Pradhan report.

The Pradhan panel says senior police officers told it the commissioner did not guide them or inquire about the operations. Although Gafoor contacted individual officers on wireless or mobile phones, they lacked the feeling of being part of a united force. The Pradhan report says Gafoor should have taken charge of the control room.

The government jumped to Gafoor’s defence. “This opinion of the committee cannot be accepted. In Para 4 and Para 5.1, the committee has clearly said Mumbai police performed their responsibilities very well. How can the chief of the same force be faulted for failure is not clear,” is the government response.

The Pradhan committee also says standard operating procedure was not followed, since Gafoor asked the joint commissioner (crime) to co-ordinate the control room when he should have been liaising with the anti-terrorist squad chief.

The committee says that since there was no specific intelligence from the central agencies, it could not be concluded that the Mumbai/state police did not take alerts seriously. It says that following an intelligence report on September 24, 2008, that the Lashkar-e-Toiba was targeting the Taj, deputy commissioner (Zone 1) Vishwas Nangre-Patil had a meeting with the hotel’s security on September 29 at which general manager Karambir Kang was present.

“We are forced to opine that the Taj and Oberoi management did not implement the security measures suggested by DCP Zone 1,” the committee says. Tata group chairman Ratan Tata had said the hotel received no information from the police.