India: Politicians are to blame for terror - Central agencies
19 Sep 2008
MUMBAI: The intelligence community is seething with anger for being blamed by politicians for its "failure' ' to prevent the series of serial blasts across the country. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attributed the blasts to "gaps in intelligence,'' recently.
Sources in intelligence agencies said it is the political leadership which is to be blamed for the elusive Indian Mujahideen's current run of the country. A senior official said "Take the case of Hassan Ali, the Pune-based businessman. He was under the scanner of several Central agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and other bodies. Finally, it was found that he had handled hawala transactions valued at a mind numbing Rs 35,000 crore through Swiss banks.''
The bank accounts were traced and he was brought in for interrogation. How was it possible for a businessman to have access to so much cash, was the question on everyone's mind. The probe was stymied midway by vested interests with political clout. Ali has done the vanishing act. His wife and brother-in-law too are missing. "Why was he allowed to go scot free?'' asked an IPS officer.
Sources said there was no evidence of any concrete link between Ali and terror funds. "Nevertheless, why was he taken off the hook? In any other country, he would have been put through the grind given the volume of his transactions. But in
In another case, the Mumbai crime branch had gathered evidence about the alleged links between a famous Pune businessman and Pakistan-based brother of don Dawood Ibrahim, Anees Ibrahim.
An eyewitness gave a detailed account of the goingson between the businessman and Hamid Antulay, Dawood's nephew in
Dawood Ibrahim's key contact person in Mohammed Ali who is known to control smuggling operations in city docks. "Any consignment can be taken out or brought into the country by Ali's huge gang. A detailed dossier on his activities, which has serious security implications for the country, has been sent to the Union home department. But there has been no response so far,'' an official said.
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More teeth to fight terror
Prafulla Marpakwar ,TNN
19 Sep 2008, 0849 hrs IST,
MUMBAI: The city and
Much of the new weapons, vehicles and equipment will be routed to the frontline of the war against terrorism and Naxal violence. Areas that the force will concentrate on in the city are hospitals and the coastline. The state home department, headed by deputy chief minister R R Patil, had submitted a Rs-100-crore plan to the centre; the centre's share was to be Rs 75 crore and the state's the remaining Rs 25 crore. "The centre has approved the plan and we are already in the process of implementing the modernisation scheme,'' a senior home department official told TOI on Thursday.
Elaborating on the multi-crore mega plan, the official said one part of the plan - worth Rs 27 crore - was submitted by the Mumbai Police commissioner for the city policing scheme and another part (worth Rs 62 crore) was submitted by the director-general of police for the rest of Maharashtra.
TOI got a detailed break-up of the plan for Mumbai on Thursday. Rs 3.38 crore will be utilised for improving the mobility of our police force; about 200 vehicles will be bought with this money. Rs 1.2 crore will go for the computerisation of records, Rs 12.64 crore will go into buying new equipment , Rs 4 crore will be devoted to improving the police force's communication network, Rs 5.44 crore
will go into constructing new police stations in the city.
What shows the government's commitment to fighting terror is the provision for Rs 2 crore - a firsttime occurrence - for the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad.
The state police force, too, will get a lot more teeth to tackle Naxal violence. Rs 16.42 crore has been provided for procuring nearly 500 vehicles (which includes 350 motorcycles ), Rs 5.56 crore will go to computerisation of records, Rs 7.16 crore will go for buying new weapons for the force and Rs 8 crore will be devoted to solely tackling the Naxal violence in the five districts of the Vidarbha region.
"Police officials deployed in the Naxalite-infested districts will be armed with AK-47 rifles and will have the service of modern vehicles,'' the official said.
The Forensic Science Laboratory, too, will not be left out of the modernisation plans; the home department has kept a provision of Rs 8.15 crore for this lab. Rs 3.06 crore will be allotted for homeguards. The centre launched the modernisation programme for police forces seven years ago and the benefits have already started being felt; a total of 3,655 old vehicles have been replaced even as
WHAT WE HAVE NOW
Mumbai has been one of the top terror targets in
MUMBAI POLICE
TOTAL personnel: 42,000 NUMBER of police stations: 86 CCTVS installed: BEST buses, major railway stations (CST, Churchgate, Dadar, Bandra, Andheri, Borivli, Wadala, Mumbai Central), 86 police stations, all major malls and multiplexes ANNUAL budget: Rs 700 crore VEHICLES at its disposal: 1,500
ANTI-TERRORISM SQUAD
ATS personnel: 450 YEAR of formation: 2003 NUMBER of police stations: 1 police station and 8 units spread across the state EQUIPMENT: Glock pistols and AK-47 s
TWIN TARGETS
Here's how Mumbai and
MUMBAI ORIGINAL TERROR |
Bombs exploded at over dozen places, including the Bombay Stock Exchange building, Katha Bazaar, near the Shiv Sena Bhavan, Zaveri Bazaar, Century Bazaar, Mahim Fishermen's Colony and Plaze Cinema, on 12 March 1993; big-time terrorism came to
STORM AFTER THE LULL |
A series of blasts happened at several places, including outside Ghatkopar railway station (2 dead, 21 injured), at Mumbai Central railway station (25 wounded), Vile Parle Market (1 dead, 30 injured), Mulund railway station (11 killed, 65 wounded), on a BEST bus in Ghatkopar (4 dead, 32 hurt), between December 2002 and August 2003. The last blasts in this cycle occurred opposite Hotel Taj and at Zaveri Bazaar on 25 August 2003; the twin blasts killed 24 people and injured 150.
LIFELINE HALTED |
Seven blasts happened on seven trains on 11 July 2006, when the coaches were crammed with evening rush-hour passengers. 188 people died in the blasts at Matunga, Mahim, Bandra, Khar,
1996 | 16 people killed in bomb blasts at the Lajpat Nagar Central Market.
1997 | 6 people died and more than 230 were injured in 6 blasts throughout the year (5 occurred in October); the targeted areas were diverse (including the Red Fort area) and the first blast of the year happened just opposite the Delhi Police headquarters at ITO.
1999 | Two blasts in April and June at Chandni Chowk and Holambi Kalan railway station left 2 dead and dozens hurt.
2005 | 59 people died in Delhi's bloodiest terror attack on 29 October 2005; there were three blasts at Sarojini Nagar, Paharganj and Govindpuri. Another blast on 22 May outside the
THE LAST ATTACK |
Serial blasts killed 24 and left 90 people injured on 13 September.
(There have been other attacks, both in Mumbai and