NEW DELHI: The turf war between the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) over the recent terror alert gaffe has come out in the open with the IB strongly denying that the warning received by the Multi Agency Centre (MAC) was changed.
The alert by the RAW was sent to the MAC under the IB, which in turn forwarded it to Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Goa and Punjab Governments. IB sources said that the alert received through RAW was forwarded without increasing the level of threat. “It was generated by the external agency of the country (RAW) and the MAC refrains from adding anything if it is a terror alert with ‘A’ classification. The MAC just looks at the threat location and forwards it with the collected information,” sources said.
The alert issued by the MAC to the states had left agencies red-faced as some ‘terrorists’ identified in the advisory were reported to be two businessmen and a guard from Lahore. The matter came to light on May 10 and the IB was at the receiving end for forwarding the alert without proper clarification. The information, with ‘A’ category classification, cultivated by some middle-level officers of the RAW is said to have been forwarded to the MAC without assessing the information within the external agency. “The IB had not checked the details since it came from RAW, but also did not add anything. Generally, when a sensitive input is received, it is presumed that alert must have been cleared by the senior officials of that particular agency,” sources said. Based on the Intelligence input, the agency had warned that five Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives have sneaked into India to target sensitive installations like petroleum establishments.
The Mumbai police had even circulated three of the five photos last week after it was tipped off by the IB. After a Mumbai-based newspaper reported the advisory along with the photographs, Pakistani media claimed that the three were presently living in Lahore. A former RAW operative R K Yadav also wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to fix the responsibility as authenticity of highest order should have been guarded by the senior officials prior to sending this report to the government.
“The procurer of this report would also have certainly kept in mind the credibility and level of his sources before passing to his higher officers. If ISI has been able to plant this report through some double agent in RAW, then the onus and gravity of this lapse falls not only on the field operative but other senior officers including the RAW secretary,” the letter said. The letter also blames officials of the RAW for several such lapses when spies in foreign countries were rebuked by the senior officers for reporting some sensitive inputs and later transferred to remote locations as punishment.