Why police were lame duck targets for 26/11 attackers (IANS Exclusive: Last part of a 3-part series. Part 1 and 2 ran Sunday, Monday)

NEW DELHI - Lack of weapons and training created a “serious disability” within the Mumbai police to fight well-equipped and trained terrorists like those who ravaged India’s financial capital last year, says a government appointed probe panel formed after the 26/11 terror strikes.

Police arms were “no match to the superior fire power of the (Pakistani) terrorists, who carried AK-47 assault rifles, pistols, hand grenades, bags of eight kilograms of RDX, sophisticated cell phones and commando-wear clothing”, says the report of the R.D. Pradhan probe committee.

In a scathing indictment, the 90-page report says some policemen, armed with only lathis, rushed headlong to face the terrorists who were lobbing hand grenades.

“The police vehicles (rushed to fight the terrorists) were only equipped with riot gear of ‘lathis’ (sticks), gas guns and .303 rifles.”

The policemen were in their usual gear with no reinforcements and were not prepared for the 60-hour siege that claimed 166 lives, including those of 26 foreigners.

Mumbai was savaged by a terror trauma that started on the night on Nov 26, 2008 when 10 terrorists who came by boat from Pakistan sneaked into the commercial megalopolis and began a siege that ended only on the afternoon of Nov 28 after commandoes of the National Security Guard took over from the state police.

Nine of the 10 terrorists gunned down and India was brought to its knees as horrified citizens watched the masked gunmen run riot.

IANS has accessed the probe report, written up by former home secretary and Arunachal Pradesh governor R.D. Pradhan and former civil servant V. Balachandran. The Maharashtra government has tabled the report in the state assembly but it has not been made public. It points to non-adherence to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) during the terror siege.

The probe panel has slammed the state government and police for not preventing the attacks despite intelligence warnings about specific targets and above all, has criticized the authorities for not providing adequate arms and training to the police force.

“Mumbai police did not have adequate protective gear like good bulletproof vests to fight the terrorists,” says the report.

Hemant Karkare, the then Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief, was among the top police officers killed by the terrorists. It has been alleged in a court that Karkare would not have been dead but for his defective apron-like bulletproof jacket that left his shoulders exposed.

The panel was “aghast to find the state police ill-equipped and with very little perception of new threats faced by the country.”

“We were shown bullet proof jackets of 1993 vintage, weighing 10 to 12 kg. How can anyone resist terrorists with such heavy weight?” the panel asks.

The police’s elite Quick Response Team (QRT), which comprises eight officers and 48 men and had been set up specially to handle emergency situations, had received “no actual simulated training in facing terrorist attacks and hostage rescue”.

The report quotes an unnamed expert as saying that “the organisational structure and training curriculum of the QRT were totally inadequate”.

“QRT did not do any firing since September 2007 due to the shortage of ammunition although they are (bound) to carry out firing practice every fourth day,” states the report, quoting Maharashtra’s acting police chief A.N. Roy.

The police modernisation policies and purchase of arms and ammunition were blocked by red tape, it says, adding the delay in approving a draft weapons policy recommending the replacement of outated arms with sophisticated ones has been inordinately delayed.

The delay has led to a surge in costs. In 2007, the costs were estimated at Rs.168 crore and in 2008, this had increased to Rs.210 crore.

The annual requirement of arms and ammunition in the state police has also shot up with the induction of 33,000 personnel at various levels.

“This has created serious shortage of arms and ammunition for Maharashtra Police. It needs to be sorted out urgently rather than prolonging the correspondence,” the report states.

“The agility with which the terrorists moved about and operated their weapons hold many lessons. The police must be provided with equipment and the means to challenge (sic) any attacks in future,” the report adds.

(Murali Krishnan can be contacted at m.krish@ians.in)