Now if the RAW and IB, currently headed by Narayanan’s protégés, did have prior intelligence, why did the two chiefs not go directly to the PM or make efforts to pre-empt or prevent the strike? Was the alert passed on to the PM in the daily intelligence brief? The most serious problem would be if the tradition of the

PM holding one-to-one meetings with the chiefs has given way to the NSA alone vetting intelligence.

In all likelihood, the crucial intelligence alert, if at all there was one, was buried under tonnes of so-called unofficial letters containing generic but not actionable intelligence that are dished out by the two agencies daily. Did the IB or the RAW station agents at the Taj or the Oberoi? Did the RAW undertake any covert operations to nip the attack in the bud? Did the IB brief the home secretary or the director general of the Maharashtra police? There are many questions that may never be answered, just as after the Kargil fiasco the IB, the RAW and the NSA got away scot-free.

If the intelligence agencies have failed miserably in alerting the massive internal security establishment to the Mumbai attack, the navy, coast guard and the state police too must come under the scanner. Under the maritime security charter, it is the state marine police’s responsibility to patrol up to 5 nautical miles from the shore. The coast guard’s job is to survey up to 200 nautical miles, India’s exclusive economic zone; and the blue water beyond is with the Navy. Yet the terrorists managed to hoodwink all three and land at Budhwar Park, a stone’s throw from the base of the Western Navy, and minutes away from the state police headquarters. Given the free hand they were given, it is presumably a matter of choice — theirs — that they did not attack Bombay High, the nuclear facility in Trombay or the RBI. And in the furore over the delayed response, one point is often overlooked: in theory, a commando team of National Security Guards, India’s only counter-terror force, is ready 24x7 to deal with such events. Russian IL-76 aircraft are supposed to always be on standby at Palam air base and Mumbai is only one hour and 35 minutes away by a jet. This was ignored in practice: all the wisdom learnt from IC-814’s hijacking to Kandahar went waste and the government and its enforcement arms fought de novo. 

... contd.