26/11 and the shame of Indian intelligence bunglers

By Subhash Chopra

The facts behind the conviction of David Coleman Headley (alias Daood Gilani) and Tahawwur  Hussain Rana by a Chicago court on terror related charges  concerning  26/11 events in India and Denmark have thrown up a host of questions. Highly charged Indian media and political players have been crying hoarse over the betrayal by the US for not cooperating with India by holding back on information about Headley and Rana  and then adding  insult to injury by refusing to extradite  the pair of  them.

But what   about the intelligence of various Indian intelligence agencies and their functioning over the recent years leading up to the Mumbai carnage of 26/11, 2008? What were these  highly paid, rarely questioned , far less answerable  than any other set of functionaries doing  all this time? Enjoying all the perks and taking it easy at the poor citizen’s expense ? Expecting America’s CIA and other agencies to do their work in the name of cooperation?

Headley(Gilani),  son of a Pakistani national and an American woman and a self-confessed India -hater , visited India several times  for three years from September 2006 to July 2008. After spending his impressionable years in Pakistan following his parents’ divorce,  he joined his mother in America when he was 17, helping her to run her 'Khyber Pass' bar for some time.He himself is said to be thrice married and divorced, the latest from his Moroccan wife with whom he spent their honeymoon at the Taj hotel in Mumbai.

Headley(Gilani), an old school friend of  Pakistani army deserter Rana , was running  an immigration facilitation agency  (racket)  for US and Canada visa seekers  in Mumbai’s AC Market in Tardeo for all these years as a cover for  his anti-Indian activities in collusion with Lashkar-e-Tayyeba(LeT) and  his other masters  in Pakistan who unleashed the 26/11 assault on Mumbai. He set up his  dummy immigration office on a so-called licence  from Rana’s  Immigration Law Centre in Chicago. He even visited cities like Agra, Ahmedabad  and Kochi, ostensibly  to interview visa hopefuls or, more likely, potential recruits for  his grand plan.

All this while he not only carried out  reconnaissance  of all the targets, including  hotels like the Taj on several  occasions, but also videographed  the places providing details to his handlers in Pakistan for  attacks on individual buildings.

Headley(Gilani) moved in and out of India all those years without raising the slightest of suspicion among the Indian intelligence operatives. Even after 26/11 he paid another visit in 2009, probably to gloat over his mission’s success!

Indian agencies bungled the intelligence supplied by the US agencies who had given two specific tip-offs. In September 2008 the US agencies warned of a possible attack on targets in Mumbai , followed days later by another tip-off about a possible  coastal or maritime attack. Indian authorities  took up the second tip-off and strengthened coastline security but called off the patrols on November 20,  just six days before 26/11, according to one report.

Could there be a bigger bungle? What about the intelligence of these bunglers?

With television channels in the vanguard, Indian intelligence agencies and political parties are crying betrayal by the US for not extraditing Headley(Gilani) and Rana  to India. Why are they  not baying for their own  intelligence bunglers? Shouldn’t some  top heads roll even at this late hour after all the tragedy, shameful neglect and total incompetence?

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