A screen shot of the false alert as published on the website of India Today magazine
Introduction
This paper will examine the performance of India's counter-terrorism intelligence agencies, especially looking into their role in the period after the November 26, 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, the country's financial capital. It will explain how Indian intelligence agencies are resorting to shortcuts, failing as a matter of cultural practice to think about security threats, accused of "faking" security preparedness reports, and, instead of gathering hard evidence against terror groups, pushing blame on Pakistani groups for militant activities in India.
On May 9, 2012, the Indian intelligence agencies released photographs of five Pakistani men, stating that they were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists who had entered Mumbai to carry out suicide bombings there. The intelligence about the five men came to the Mumbai police through the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), the country's external intelligence agency. Within 24 hours, RAW was left with egg on its face as the Pakistani media revealed that all the five men were businessmen very much present in Pakistan.
An early report, published the next day on the website of a Pakistani daily, noted that the three of the five men were "present in Lahore, with two of them running businesses and one serving as a security guard at the city's famed electronics market Hafeez Centre."[1] The three were identified as businessmen Atif Butt and Mehtab Butt, and security guard Baber. The same Pakistani newspaper, three days later, also revealed that the remaining two of the five alleged terrorists were in Lahore, noting that Amjad Ali Khan is an employee of a mobile phone shop and Nadeem Malik runs a business selling old mobile phones.[2]
As discussed below, this spectacular Indian intelligence failure is not new, though it has come as a shock to the country, which has been on constant security alert in recent years. Soon after the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the Indian government moved quickly to streamline the country's intelligence work on and response to emerging terror threats by setting up the National Investigating Agency (NIA), a federal agency tasked with leveraging the work of different intelligence and security agencies in India. The NIA coordinates the counter-terrorism analysis of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), RAW and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), among others.
Indian Intelligence – A Cultural Failure
The false alert about the so-called five LeT men has turned the focus on RAW, which is getting lots of negative media coverage. Having been established after India's loss in the 1962 war with China, RAW is expected to have better-than-obvious expertise on the country's neighborhood, with both China and Pakistan its traditional playing fields.
Vikram Sood, a former RAW Secretary, commented on the false alert, saying that all intelligence agencies do fail, for example in the attacks of 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, observing: "Was there an intelligence failure recently? The answer is, perhaps, yes. Is this the first time such an incident has happened? Certainly no. Could it happen again? Unfortunately, yes. So was there egg on their faces? The answer is no. This is because what happened was in the line of duty."[3]
The former RAW Secretary is correct about the complexities of intelligence gathering. However, it is also true that over the past few decades, a pattern can be noticed in India: in the case of any bomb threat or a militancy case, even a low-ranking policeman – who is generally not expected to have high-level access to intelligence – rushes to put the blame on LeT and on ISI, the Inter-Services Intelligence of the Pakistani military. The argument here is not that the LeT and ISI are not involved in terror networks in India; it is that references to LeT and ISI are shortcuts to avoiding the actual work of intelligence gathering. Often criminals captured in entirely non-terrorism cases are forced to make confessions about the LeT and ISI role in entirely different terror cases, sometimes even those occurring after their detention.
Additionally, in some non-cases – i.e. cases which do not exist – Indian police are known to issue false alerts, a fact known to journalists. Just to illustrate the point, every year on the eve of India's Republic Day, police in the Indian capital of New Delhi, where a grand military parade is held on January 26, issue security alerts, telling journalists that a bomb has been defused or a suspect has been held in custody. Such a warning, which may not always be false, is supposed to cause disarray among potential terrorists and enable the people to be vigilant about their neighborhood.
There exists a serious cultural problem in Indian security and intelligence practice, as also illustrated in the case of the Lahore businessmen. It appears that the ISI tricked RAW by providing false information about the Lahore men. The Indian daily The Hindu, which has traditionally been known for its journalistic accuracy, reported: "The intelligence debacle, the RAW's worst fiasco in years, is the latest in a series of embarrassing intelligence failures, among them the listing of individuals held in Indian prisons in a government dossier [given to Pakistan] on the alleged fugitives in Pakistan. Though there was no corroboration of the threat from other agencies or communications intelligence, the Mumbai Police decided to make the information public."[4]
An Indian intelligence officer explained what happened: "The consensus [regarding the five Lahore men] … was that it was best to get the information we had out there, in the hope of at least embarrassing the ISI into calling off the operation. No one wanted to be accused of withholding information, in case something happened."[5] This statement gives a cultural insight into the mindset of RAW and other intelligence agencies. When five suicide bombers are believed to have entered a major Indian city, the intelligence agents are expected to do evidence work and not to think about "embarrassing" the enemy intelligence, though 007 James Bond-style games involving intelligence agents are known to have been played in every country.
International Embarrassment As India's Most Wanted From Pakistan Found in India
Over the past few decades, India has been troubled by the unending Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir and mainland India. It has blamed Pakistan's ISI, LeT, and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) for numerous terror attacks in India. It has accused Pakistan of not acting against LeT founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, whose groups are blamed for the December 13, 2001 attack on the Indian parliament and the November 26, 2008 attacks in Mumbai, among other such attacks.
In the years following the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, India handed over a series of dossier of evidence to Pakistan against Hafiz Saeed and other militants, calling on Pakistan to act against them. In March 2011, India handed to Pakistan a list of 50 terrorists and criminals hiding in Pakistan, many of them Indian nationals, and demanded their extradition to India. The list included LeT founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Major Iqbal who is a suspected member of the ISI, JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, Sajid Mir, Major Sameer Ali, Syed Abdul Rehman aka Pasha, Abu Hamza, and Muttahida Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin, and a number of other militants and criminals.[6]
However, in a major international embarrassment for the Indian government and all domestic and foreign wings of Indian intelligence, the Indian media quickly unearthed that at least two of the 50 individuals who were supposed to be hiding in Pakistan were very much present in India. Wazhul Qamar Khan, who was arrested in 2010 in connection with five cases and released on bail, was found to be living with his ailing mother and other family members in Thane on the outskirts of Mumbai.[7] "I am very much here and attend the court hearings regularly. So how can you say that I am hiding in Pakistan?" he told a Times of India reporter.[8] The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Indian federal investigating agency, had nowhere left to hide for having Wazhul Qamar Khan on the "most wanted list" of fugitives on its website.[9]
Feroz Abdul Rashid Khan aka Ferozuddin aka Hamza – also on the list handed to the Pakistani government – was also found to be locked up in the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai since February 2010.[10] "The second embarrassment [revelation about Feroz Abdul Rashid Khan being present in India] comes after… Home Minister P. Chidambaram's admission that the first goof-up was the result of a lapse on part of the Intelligence Bureau [IB] and Mumbai Police in preparing the most-wanted list," an Indian media report noted.[11]
Of the two, Wazhul Qamar Khan's statement to the media detailed his years in hiding, stressing that he had "never gone to Pakistan."[12] The statement illustrates the argument that Indian cops rush to link any militant to Pakistani terror groups such as the LeT and the ISI, and his name was put on the list just to make a point against Pakistan. Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram, whose ministry oversees the intelligence apparatus in the country, apologized for the "genuine oversight" and the Indian government later revised the list of fugitives.[13] The finding of two so-called fugitives was not only a spectacular embarrassment for domestic Indian intelligence agencies, but also for RAW, whose primary focus is on Pakistan.
Indian Government Discovered "Faking" Counter-Terrorism Security Preparedness
Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram
The intelligence agencies in India work under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which publishes an annual security review report. In 2011, noted journalist Praveen Swami, who specializes on security-related issues, carried out a comparative study of the MHA's two recent annual reports. His report, titled "The Indian Art of Faking Security," accused the MHA of "faking" the assessment regarding India's counter-terrorism preparedness following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, noting that the ministry, headed by Home Minister P. Chidambaram, has been failing in its claims of counter-terrorism efforts and that the annual security reviews present claims of previous year's reports as achievements.[14]
Praveen Swami's report observed:[15]
"Post-26/11 [November 26, 2008 attacks in Mumbai] security reforms are painstakingly documented in the reports released by the MHA each year. The latest report, for 2010-2011, is 307 pages long – up from the 216 put together in 2009-2010, Mr. Chidambaram's first full year in charge of the gargantuan task of dragging India's security and intelligence infrastructure out of the Mughal era. The healthy increase in the volume of text might give reason to believe a great deal is being done – but a close reading suggests that this conclusion would be wrong.
"Last year, the MHA focussed on improving coastal security. The 2009-2010 report said it had 'been decided to formulate Phase-II of the Coastal Security Scheme keeping in view the additional requirements of coastal police stations, interceptor boats and other infrastructure. In this regard, the coastal States/UTs [federally administered Union Territories] have carried out vulnerability/gap analysis in consultation with Coast Guard.'
"Here's what the MHA says it did in 2010-2011: 'decided to formulate Phase-II of the Coastal Security Scheme keeping in view the additional requirements of coastal police stations, interceptor boats and other infrastructure.' 'In this regard,' it continues happily, 'the coastal States/UTs have carried out vulnerability/gap analysis in consultation with Coast Guard' – a verbatim repeat of the previous year text.
"This isn't the only evidence of the formidable skills of the MHA's mandarins in the fine art of faking security. The MHA announced in 2010 that it had set up regional hubs of the 'National Security Guards with a total strength of 1,086 personnel, i.e. 241 personnel for each hub and 122 personnel for administrative support, have been set up by the Government at Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.'
"In 2010-2011, exactly the same thing was advertised as a new achievement, in exactly the same language – though it has, thankfully, been moved down from page 96 to 146. The actual record of implementation has been patchy. Both the 2010 and 2011 reports record, for example, instructions to fit transponders on India's merchant fleet – a kind of electronic device that would allow coastal authorities to track the whereabouts of the fleet in real time. The Director-General of Shipping at the Department of Shipping, both reports state [in verbatim repetition], 'issued two circulars to ensure that all types of vessels including fishing vessels' carried the cheap, easily-available devices. Neither report, though, tells us how many have actually been fitted: the number, a senior government source wryly said, 'is less than one.'"
The Government Ban on SIMI – A Test Case In Intelligence Gathering
The Indian police are bad in gathering forensic evidence even in minor criminal cases. A test case for Indian intelligence agencies is a government ban on the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a radical Islamist organization which emerged as a student of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH), the country's largest Islamic organization, in 1977. The SIMI broke away from JIH due to ideological differences, especially over SIMI's adherence to the radical ideology espoused by Egyptian cleric Syed Qutb. The Indian government banned the group on September 27, 2001, i.e. after the 9/11 attacks.
Under the law, the Indian government banned the SIMI for a two-year period, at the end of which the group was banned again for another two years, then for another two years, until this process has been repeated six times. The key reason for such a repeated action by the government is that the police are failing to produce evidence before the courts. Several members of SIMI have been detained in recent years, the latest being the arrest of one Anwar Hazi from the town of Indore "for his connection with unspecified terror acts" – according to a report in The Times of India newspaper.[16] Lawyers for the "former" SIMI members argued recently before the Supreme Court of India that the SIMI ceased to exist and there is no reason – in the absence of evidence incriminating them in terror activities – why they should be detained.
On such a petition, a counsel appearing for Humam Ahmad Siddiqui and Misbahul Islam told the Supreme Court that the SIMI ceased to exist but the government argues that it continues to exist illegally. A petition, filed on behalf of the two persons, contended that the government's claim is "based almost entirely upon the alleged confessional statements" – which is inadmissible before the court while the government continues to rely upon it to continue the ban on SIMI.[17] The Supreme Court has issued a notice – the first time since September 2001 – to the Indian government to respond to the petition.
It appears that instead of producing evidence, security officials are quoting couplets by 19th century Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, to add flavor to their submissions before the court – which highlights how careless the work of gathering evidence against militant organizations in India is. Humam Ahmad Siddiqui, who is a petitioner before the Supreme Court, remarked: "The petitioners have alleged that enforcement agencies were so callous in their job that they produced before the court, couplet by the famous poet Mirza Ghalib, sundry books and magazines in Urdu as evidence against the SIMI…."[18]
It is likely that the apex court could rule in favor of the SIMI, lifting the government ban, or the government could re-impose the ban again after the two-year period ends. A government-constituted tribunal headed by Delhi High Court Judge V.K. Shali is touring various Indian states to decide if the ban on SIMI can continue. But the case here is essentially about the failure of intelligence and security agencies to produce counter-terrorism evidence against SIMI in this case or generally against all terror groups.
The Intelligence Failure – Pakistani Terrorists Recently Released by India
A copy of Haftroza Al-Qalam
It appears that the domestic intelligence and security agencies – the Intelligence Bureau, the police, etc. – have recently failed to track Pakistani militants incarcerated in Indian prisons in connection with cases of various types, which need not be terrorism-related. A number of militants belonging to the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) of Maulana Masood Azhar were released from Indian prisons in recent years, according to reports appearing in Haftroza Al-Qalam, the Urdu-language Pakistani weekly magazine of JeM.
The Indian intelligence routinely failed to identify that many of those released were militants, especially from Jaish-e-Muhammad. For example, a January 2011 report in Haftroza Al-Qalam noted that five JeM members were among a number of Pakistani prisoners released by India as a gesture of goodwill.
A team of militants led by Qari Zarrar of Al-Rehmat Trust welcomed the "five mujahedeen released from various jails of India" at the Wagah border, the Urdu weekly reported, identifying them as Muhammad Adnan of Gujarat town, Muhammad Bilal of Chakwal town, Syed Waqar Shah of Mansehra, and Muhammad Manzoor and Muhammad Aslam both of the Bagh district of Pakistani Kashmir.[19] Muhammad Adnan and Muhammad Bilal, who were top-ranking commanders, were accorded a "spectacular welcome" at the headquarters of Jaish-e-Muhammad in the town of Bahawalpur where the welcoming ceremony was addressed by radical cleric Mufti Abdur Rauf Asghar.[20]
In April 2011, Saiful Maluk, a JeM militant who had served five and a half years in an Indian prison, was part of Pakistani nationals freed by India. After his arrival, a grand party was organized in his honor by the Jaish-e-Muhammad in Bahawalpur, where militant clerics Maulana Muhammad Talha and Maulana Muhammad Shafiq Abu Jandal told the gathering that Al-Rahmat Trust would use all resources to free all of its militants from Indian prisons, according to Haftroza Al-Qalam.[21] Bahawalpur is the headquarters of Jaish-e-Muhammad.
In an entirely different context of the 1999 Kandahar plane hijacking, India released JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar along with militant commanders Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Omar Saeed Sheikh, who later went on to plot the beheading of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. Masood Azhar's release and his group's subsequent expansion highlight the extent of damage caused by the release of a single militant from Indian prisons.
Reading through the pages of Haftroza Al-Qalam, one gathers the impression that Jaish-e-Muhammad might be helping its members imprisoned in India by providing legal and financial assistance.
* Tufail Ahmad is Director of MEMRI's South Asia Studies Project (www.memri.org/sasp)
Endnotes:
[1] www.tribune.com.pk (Pakistan), May 10, 2012. The original English of all reports cited in this dispatch has been lightly edited for clarity and standardization.
[13] Dawn (Pakistan), May 21, 2011.
