NAGPUR: A high-level official committee has singled out former Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor for severe indictment of his handling of the Mumbai terror attack, faulting him for "absence of overt leadership" and "lack of visible Command and Control".
The two-member committee, headed by former Governor and Union Home Secretary R D Pradhan appointed by the Maharashtra government to go into the Mumbai terror strikes, found serious lapses on the part of Gafoor in handling the "war-like" multi-pronged attack.
However, it did not find any serious lapses on the part of individual officers and police men of the Mumbai Police. In fact, it praised the courage of officers and men -- some may consider as thoughtless -- to launch themselves into situation that were hopeless and knowing that they may be killed.
"Supreme instance of that was the way the ASI Tukaram Gopal Omble tackled two terrorists (one of whom was Kasab) in a Skoda car in Chowpatty," it said.
In its recommendations, the committee has suggested steps to strengthen coastal security through better monitoring at higher levels of Governments of India and Maharashtra and to remove the red-tape for quicker modernisation of police with automatic arms and ammunition.
The Ram Pradhan Committee has lashed out at the Mumbai Police top brass for lack of "cohesion and communication" during the 26/11 terror attacks.
The report says there was no officer to lead the Quick Reaction Team during the Taj and Oberoi operations, where the personnel had gone up to the ninth floor.
The committee says intelligence inputs suggested that luxury hotels could be on the target of terrorists who may enter the city through sea route but ironically in the same breath also mentions there was no "specific intelligence" that targeted hotels could be Taj or Oberoi.
"Six alerts were on possibility of sea-borne attack while 11 were on possibility of multiple and simultaneous attacks and three were on the possibility of commandos attack (Fidayeen). There was however no specific intelligence that sea-borne terrorists would hit Hotel Taj or Oberoi.
"Intelligence alerts however pointed a possibility of these two luxury hotels as well as CST likely being targets," the report said.
The committee says that Intelligence Bureau gave three reports of Jewish places being on the target of terrorists in Mumbai but gave benefit of doubt to Mumbai Police by saying the "particular target" was not mentioned in them and the police were taken by surprise when Nariman House was attacked.
The committee also says that there was "total confusion" in the processing of intelligence alerts at the state government level.