Mumbai: Many top officials have stated before the Ram Pradhan Committee which probed the 26/11 attacks that Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor neither gave them the right guidance, nor did he inquire about the ongoing operations. As a result, many officers did not feel one with the police force.

Mr. Gafoor’s communication on the wireless and the mobile phone was not of much help. “We have come to the conclusion that Mr. Hasan Gafoor was lacking in vision and leadership,” the Committee observes.

The report also states the Commissioner should have taken charge of the control room to avoid repetition of police efforts.

The government which recently replaced Mr. Gafoor has rejected his indictment in its official response. In an ironic reply, the ATR maintains that since the police force did a commendable job of countering the attacks, “how could the leader be at fault?”

In addition, the report does not elaborate enough on the former Commissioner’s failure, the government has said.

The report also hints at a failure of the intelligence gathering mechanism. “Had the intelligence inputs been weighed correctly, the conspiracy of a possible attack on Mumbai would have come to light. The current mechanism is not adept at assessing the inputs minutely.”

Despite the highlighted flaw, there is no mention of the former State Intelligence Department (SID) chief D. Sivanandan. He has now been appointed as the new Commissioner.

In his address to the media, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said that the government had not accepted the report in its entirety. “We have noted down points on which action needs to be taken,” he said.

He fielded questions on why the former Director General of Police (DGP) A.N. Roy was not made accountable in the report. Mr. Chavan said the State was neither lenient towards anybody, nor was it trying to make anyone a scapegoat.

Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria who was heading the control room has been praised twice in the report. It notes that the Standard Operation Procedure was not followed. Instead of Jt. CP Law and Order Jt. CP Crime was made to take charge of the control.

The government has listed various measures from modernisation of police force to creation of State-level combat teams and security measures along the coastline as part of its response to the Committee’s recommendations.

Pandemonium broke loose in the House when the government tabled the ATR without tabling the report. The Opposition stalled the proceedings for over four hours over this U-turn. Members stormed out of their seats demanding the tabling of the report and sat in the well in protest.

Opposition leader Ramdas Kadam pointed out that Mr. Chavan had promised to table the report.

BJP leader Eknath Khadse said the ATR had excluded inconvenient findings. Mr. Khadse said as per his information the report named three Ministers, a contention which the Chief Minister rejected as specious.