13/7 blasts: An intelligence failure

The Mumbai bomb blasts on 13/7 left at least 20 people dead and over 130 injured. In a departure from the past, where India accused Pakistan even at the drop of a hat, so far the Indian administration has expressed restraint in blaming it without cancelling the Foreign Minister level talks scheduled in New Delhi later this month.
Comparatively, India’s last major terrorist attack was also in Mumbai, which led to the siege of two of its most prestigious hotels for more than 72 hours. However, within the first hour or so, the Indian media and government blamed Pakistan for it. They did not wait for the attack to end what to talk of investigations, and used it as a plea to scuttle the four-year long peace dialogue between the neighbouring countries. The talks barely resumed last month and unfortunately the 13/7 episode occurred. But so far good sense has prevailed and India has not started the blame game and is willing to wait for the results of the investigation. As a mark of solidarity, Pakistan - which is itself a major victim of terrorist attacks - has not only expressed commiseration for the loss of lives, but also offered to help investigate the crime.
The usual perpetrators of the blame game against Pakistan, the RAW sponsored South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG) and its hatemongers spewing venom against the ISI - former Additional Secretary RAW B. Raman and Rajeev Sharma, have so far been objective in their analysis. B. Raman considered the Mumbai blasts of 13/7 as an intelligence failure and took Home Minister P. Chidambaram to task for claiming otherwise. While Sharma praised New Delhi for displaying maturity and not cancelling the peace talks. However, he stated that India must categorically put it across to Pakistan at the upcoming Foreign Minister level talks that Islamabad must keep away from the Indian mujahedeen. He said: “If India were to come up with a knee jerk reaction, it would have played straight into the hands of jihadi elements who do not want the two nuclear armed neighbours to smoke the peace pipe.” However, he goes into a long tirade of conjectures that Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, leader of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), was allegedly looking after Osama bin Laden till his elimination by the US on May 2. Sharma also surmised that Khalil was an ISI protégé.
Nevertheless, India has definitely been lax in its security measures. It would be logical to assume that after the 26/11 Mumbai attack, India would have beefed up its security to ensure that such attacks are never repeated. Reuters reported: “Plans to set up 5,000 surveillance cameras across Mumbai had been gathering dust, despite the vast sums of money poured into counterterrorism efforts.” This proves that there is a lack of political will. Undoubtedly, the government should have taken appropriate steps to protect the city after the 2008 attacks.
Even B. Raman admits that “The inquiry ordered by the Maharashtra state government after the 26/11 terror strikes only went into the deficiencies of the police. The deficiencies of the central agencies were not inquired into by the government. The result: We have not learnt the right lessons.”
Anyway, the 13/7 blasts have once again shown the weakness of Indian intelligence agencies in preempting terrorist strikes. Also, the terrorists have possibly exploited the complacency on the part of the intelligence agencies, since there had been no major attack for nearly three years. Reportedly, they used ammonium nitrate, a substance first used by Ramzi Yousef in the World Trade Centre bombing. Since then the procurement of the fertiliser was to be monitored worldwide, but the Mumbai police failed in this. What else is an intelligence failure?
The writer is a political and defence analyst.