By Prachi Pinglay
BBC News, Mumbai
**Police in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) ignored intelligence alerts, according to an official inquiry into the deadly 2008 attacks in the city.**The report said the police were ill-equipped and lacked co-ordination, but it praised them for their courage.
The BBC is in possession of an advance copy of the Ram Pradhan Committee report which is yet to be made public.
At least 174 people, including 14 policemen, died when 10 gunmen attacked the city on 26 November 2008.
Police caught one of the gunmen alive and he is currently on trial. Nine other attackers were killed.
‘Shocking revelation’
The report has been prepared by the former governor of the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, RD Pradhan, and former civil servant V Balachandran.
It said there was “total confusion in the processing of intelligence alerts at the level of state government”.
It also called for an overhaul of India’s security agencies.
The report called it a “shocking revelation” that a “desk officer” took a call on forwarding intelligence information to various departments.
The inquiry also noted that at least six alerts were received between August 2006 and April 2008 about attackers taking the sea route.
“No significant steps had been taken by the state administration/government to beef up coastal security by having regular interaction with the coast guards.”
The report also criticised the two hotels which were attacked for not stepping up security after the alerts were issued.
“Tragically, the Taj and the Oberoi managements did not implement certain important security advice given by the police because of their own policy perspective as hospitality industry.”
The report said that police were ill-equipped to deal with the attack and the non-availability of arms and ammunitions was a “serious problem”.
“Many of the police mobile vehicles were equipped with only riot gear of lathis [sticks], gas guns and old rifles which were no match to the superior fire power of the terrorists who carried assault rifles, pistols, hand grenades, bags of RDX [explosives], sophisticated cell phones with headphones, commando wear clothing, etc.”
Command questions
The simultaneous attacks sparked off panic in the city leading to the police control room receiving as many as 1,365 calls in five hours, the report said.
The police were faced with “a massive challenge” as there were rumours that “60 terrorists had entered the city”.
“The control room was flooded by panicky calls from the outnumbered police units facing actions at different spots.”
The report questions the actions of Hassan Gafoor who was then police commissioner and the former Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare who died during the attacks.
“The commissioner should have taken command. More important, he ought to have presented himself as taking command. That was a serious lapse as much of individuals as of the system in place,” it says.
The report, however, applauds several policemen for their bravery and singles out officers like Arun Jadhav, Tukaram Omble, Sadanand Date and Istaq Ibrahim Bhagwan for a special mention.
The inquiry mentions “two serious and unprecedented problems encountered in Mumbai - which were operational control of terrorist attack from abroad through cell phones and competitive visual media coverage which often helped the terrorists”.
Mumbai police have already admitted there were lapses in the way they dealt with the attacks.
“I am not giving any excuses but all I can say is that what happened was unprecedented and we were unprepared to handle such things,” Mumbai police commissioner D Sivanandan said last month.