by RVS Mani
Three Ministers were being briefed on the police welfare measures including the compensation for those Central armed police personnel killed in action. At that time I remember, our Minister of State for Home, R R Gavit remarked, what was the need for such compensation, ‘since these personnel join the forces for a job and they get paid by way of salary’?
The officers present were shocked. I tried to imagine what if this Minister was asked to go around in a border outpost in the Tangdhar sector in the month of December-January on a visit and inspection between 1 am to 4 am with 17 kilograms of additional burden on his body, including bullet-proof jackets, arms and ammunition, wireless sets etc.
Sikh pilgrims to Pakistan
Every year on four occasions, Sikh jathas4 are sent by the Indian government to various religious places located in Pakistan like the holy Nankana Sahib etc. Since April was approaching, by the time I was in office, jathas to holy shrines in Pakistan on the occasion of Baisakhi, the Sikh new year, was also to be coordinated. My to do list appeared endless.
The Varanasi bomb blasts
One fine evening, quite late in the evening actually, as I was preparing to leave for the day I received a call from my superior officer. When I reached his office, I was told that there were bomb blasts in Cantonment station and the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi. I was told to collect the details from the MHA Control Room and draft a statement for the Minister.
4 An armed body of Sikhs the Gurus set up in the 17th century. These Jathas are now processions of pilgrims.
After collecting the details, I authored a small statement for the then Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, to be read in Parliament the next day (in both Houses separately). After culling out the details of the attack, the details of casualties etc. it read: ‘I condemn this attack, it is an act of cowardice; I congratulate the people of this country who maintained balance and restraint in this hour of need…blah, blah.’ Suffice it to say, both these, the MHA Control Room data input as well as the statement of the Minister, held a lot of importance in presenting this case before the courts.
The significance of this incident is that, after this attack, the frequency of terror attacks increased dramatically and became rather routine occurrences in the hinterlands of India.
For subsequent statements of the Union Home Minister after each later attack, the office of the Minister never asked MHA to draft the statements. The details of the location, time and casualties were obtained and the Minister’s office itself issued the statement. However, after the three bomb attacks in Delhi in September 2008, the repetitiveness of the Union Home Minister’s statement came in for criticism in the media (The Pioneer, if my memory serves me right). They had chronicled the text of the Home Minister’s speech after each attack. They asked whether the Home Minister was actually acting to prevent these attacks or he had his ‘prepared’ statement ready, to be issued immediately after each such attack?
My work for every day was cut out. Getting reports from the MHA Control Room every evening, praying to God that all goes well so that we do not have to stay late in the night etc. At times, I had the company of an excellent and knowledgeable colleague, R Singh who wore only Indian dresses, for guidance and counselling. He was handling anti-Naxal operations while my domain was counter-terrorism and law & order challenges.
Home Secretary-level Talks 2006
The capacity of the Joint Secretary needs to be highlighted here. In 2006, the threat from both, Naxal elements and terrorist fronts, were of high magnitude and the then incumbent officer single-handedly handled both the portfolios very successfully. Now there is a separate Naxal Management Division, with an Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary or Inspector General of Police, 3 Directors, 4-5 Under Secretaries and staff. Still ambushes happen. Several cooperative mechanisms which were in place at that time are no longer effective.
Like a juggernaut, the Internal Security Division of the country was moving on, getting inputs, sensitising States, sharing intelligence reports etc. There were incidents reported like a lowintensity bomb blast in old Delhi in April 2006, some huge arms seizure at Aurangabad in May 2006 (which is discussed later). And it was time for the ‘Home Secretary Level Talks’ (HSLT) to be held in Islamabad as a part of a ‘Composite Dialogue’ process and they were scheduled for 30-31 May 2006.
The previous version of the talks were held in New Delhi. Union Home Secretary V K Duggal was the leader of the Indian delegation in 2006. The Pakistani delegation was led by Syed Kamal Shah, who was scheduled to receive Team India.
We set about preparing for the talks. The compiling of documents for the Home Secretary’s opening remarks, the size and composition of the delegation, the logistics, the dossiersharing rigmarole, coordination between the two countries and various departments and other agencies etc.
On the gifting part, there was a specific input about the Pakistani Interior Secretary’s liking for Bikanerwala’s Badam Barfi. Hence five kilograms of this was also arranged in addition to other goodies. These were all gift-wrapped. There is a separate Division in the MHA that deals with these matters. What was inside the wrapped packages was not known to us. The delegation left Delhi on 29.5.2006.
Seeding of Hindu Terror
THERE HAD BEEN a huge seizure of arms that occurred between 9-15 May 2006. The amount of arms seized was enough to wage a war against a State.
Details of information received in MHA:
A large number of arms/ammunition including 10 AK-47 rifles, 40 magazines, 200 live cartridges, 10 magazine pouches and 43 kgs of explosive substance including 13 kgs of black colour sticky semi-solid explosive substance were recovered and seized from various parts of Maharashtra such as Aurangabad, Nasik, Beed etc. LeT along with local elements was involved in this case. A chargesheet had been filed against 17 arrested accused under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). One accused is on bail. Two more accused were arrested on 4.5.2007 in this case and are in judicial custody. 8 other accused are wanted in this case. One of the main wanted accused, Zabiuddin, was informed to be in Bangladesh. RCN has also been issued against the two wanted accused who are perhaps in Bangladesh. LeT along with ex-members of SIMI are involved in the case.
According to the informal reports that were initially available, the arms were meant for carrying out terror attacks on several sites in Maharashtra including on the RSS headquarters at Nagpur.
Further, there had been terror attacks in Varanasi on 7.3.2006 in the evening on a Tuesday at the Sankata Mochan Hanuman temple, when the place was crowded with devotees. That very evening, another attack had also taken place at the Varanasi Cantt station. This occurred less than an hour before the scheduled departure of the Shiv Ganga Express which carries passengers to New Delhi and en route, the entire western UP is covered by this train. The details of the incident as per available information is:
Two timer device IEDs, with electric detonators with high grade explosives containing ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder, exploded at Sankat Mochan temple and Cantt. Railway Station, Varanasi on 7th March 2006. One unexploded IED was recovered. 14 persons were killed and 100 injured. HUJAI-BD in association with JeM was involved. Investigation revealed the prime conspirator as Waliullah of Phulpur, Allahabad who aided and abetted the terrorists who came from Bangladesh [he] was arrested and his trial is proceeding. One Mohd Zuber r/o Barod, district Baghpat who was involved was killed in an encounter in Jammu & Kashmir. Three Bangladeshi terrorists namely Bashiruddin, Mustafiz and Zakaria and one Indian, Mohd Shamim of Alinagar PS, Chandauli (UP) are yet to be apprehended and arrest warrants have been issued against them. A chargesheet has been filed against Waliullah on 11.7.2006. The police is continuing to hunt for the absconding accused. RCNs have not been issued against Bangladeshi nationals for want of personal details.
As I had already mentioned earlier, there had been a terror attack in December 2005 in a scientific conference at the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore in which an emeritus
Mathematician of IIT Delhi, Professor M C Puri, lost his life and four other scientists were injured. The brief details of this incident is recalled below:
An unidentified person lobbed a hand grenade and indiscriminately opened fire from his weapon in the open area in front of the auditorium in the Indian Institute of Science campus on 28.12.2007 killing Prof M C Puri from Delhi and injuring four other delegates. The hand grenade did not explode. The police later recovered one AK-56 Rifle along with four fully loaded AK-56 magazines, four unexploded hand grenades etc.
Prior to this, there had been several terror attacks, like the ones in Delhi on 29.10.2005. Some details of multiple attacks in Delhi on the eve of Diwali festival are:
Three IEDs with timer device exploded in Paharganj, in a bus at Govindpuri, near Kalkaji and in Sarojini Nagar Market, New Delhi, on 29th October 2005. RDX was used in all three IEDs. 67 persons were killed and 224 persons were injured. LeT was involved in these blasts. There are 8 accused in the triple bomb blasts that occurred in Delhi on 29.10.2005. Out of this, 3 accused, who are Indians, Tariq Ahmad Dar, Mohd. Hussain Fazili and Rafiq @ Mansoor are in custody and have been chargesheeted. The case is being tried in a special court constituted under the provisions of CrPC. Two of the wanted accused, Abu Hufeza and Rashid, have been killed in an encounter. The remaining 3 accused remain at large including Abu Alqama and Zaid. No Red Corner Notices (RCNs) could be issued against them for want of personal details.
Incidentally, all the persons apprehended for these attacks were Muslims. On account of these preceding terror-related incidents, an SMS campaign was triggered: ‘All Muslims are not terrorist, but all terrorists are Muslims’. At the time I did not possess a mobile phone. But this is what I received in terms of written inputs.
After this, we got down to preparing for the HSLT 2006, at Islamabad on 30-31 May 2006. All the senior officers of the Internal Security establishment of MHA, officials of Intelligence, Security and Narcotics establishments and the CBI were in Islamabad. They had left Delhi on 29.5.2006 and were expected to return on 1.6.2006.
However, on 1.6.2006, an attack on the RSS headquarters in Nagpur took place. In fact, there had been advisory on this potential attack. It is understood that a senior official of the Intelligence Bureau had personally gone and done a recce of the place and suggested certain safety measures. In spite of that, the attack did occur. Had this senior functionary not carried out the exercise, would the impact of the attack have led to disaster? Partly due to his recce and partly on account of the seizure of arms at Aurangabad from 9-15 May, a disaster was averted.
A few years ago, Seshadri Chari of the RSS had met me at a family wedding. While reminiscing on this event, Chari had told me that left to themselves, the functionaries of this muchmaligned organisation were prepared with lathis to counter an attack of this nature, for which the most sophisticated devices were planned to be deployed.
After the RSS headquarters blast
All the officers of Internal Security (IS) Division were in Pakistan in the summer of 2006. I was the only officer present in New Delhi and since my seniors, like the Joint Secretary (IS) whom I had described earlier, and Director (IS) etc. were away, I was taking it easy catching up with a few colleagues over coffee. North Block has an Indian Coffee Board vend where some good authentic decoction coffee akin to what is served in Iyer homes is available. Being posted in Internal Security Division, I was left with little time to really drink my favourite beverage with which we are brought up in Tamil homes. Since it was generally a light day workwise, I was enjoying my coffee at the North Block Coffee House.
At that time, a messenger from the office of the Union Home Minister landed up at the coffee vend, looking for me. Those were the days when the mobile was a sunrise amenity. I did not possess one, hence the messenger came looking for me. I learnt that he had zeroed in on my location after inquiring at several places.
He informed me that I had been summoned by the Additional PS to the Union Home Minister immediately. There was a sense of urgency in his voice and demeanour. I asked him which Additional PS, as full Cabinet Ministers have a sanctioned retinue of 14-15 staff members. He took the name of one Babanagare. This friendly officer had been my colleague in the Lok Sabha Secretariat where I had been on deputation from 2000 to 2004. At that time he was working in the personal establishment of the Speaker. I enjoyed a level of comfort and familiarity with this functionary. Hence, with a relaxed mindset I walked over to his first-floor office from the Coffee House which was also located on the first floor. When I met this Addl Private Secretary, he shoved me into the room of the then Minister, Shivraj Patil.
In government there are these hierarchical protocols which are to be followed. The audibility remaining intact, distance from the chair of the Minister should be directly proportional to your status in the organisation, is an unwritten rule. When an Under Secretary is called by the Minister, which is itself a rarest of rare occasion, firstly he is not to abruptly pull up a chair and sit on it. After being asked to sit, if the Minister so desires, he has to select a chair which is not very close but within the hearing range. Accordingly, I selected a chair and occupied it.
There were two other gentlemen sitting in the room, reclining on the sofa when I entered the room of the Home Minister. There was a familiar air between the three of them. One was a prominent political personality who would in the future overtly come out in support of perpetrators of terror attacks. He had been a former Chief Minister of the State of Madhya Pradesh, belonging to the same party to which the then Home Minister belonged. Of course, for the past decade-and-a-half, this party has not tasted any kind of electoral success in State assembly polls in MP. He had also become a vociferous supporter of certain groups who were in those days accused in terror attacks. Due to this, I could recognise him. He was Digvijay Singh.
The other gentleman sitting in the room was a stranger to me at that point of time. This stranger gentleman asked me about the details of the terror attacks in the then-recent past, what were the casualties, what was the then status of investigation(s) for each etc. From his demeanour and way of seeking information, I could deduce that he was a police officer. Much later during my tenure in the Ministry of Home Affairs, I could identify this officer. He unfortunately got killed in the 26/11 attacks. He was Hemant Karkare.
Thereafter, Digvijay Singh asked me for some more information.
I also informed them that other senior officers of the department would be arriving in Delhi from Islamabad in a few hours (of 1st June) but that submission of mine was not taken cognisance of. They were not even interested in knowing when the Home Secretary would be returning. During the whole interaction, the Home Minister appeared unconcerned and laid back while presiding over the ‘seeking of information’ by the other two individuals.
From the intermittent conversation between the two individuals in the Minister’s room it was clear that they were not happy with my information that ‘a particular religious group was involved in most of the terror attacks’.
However, this was what the investigating agencies were furnishing the Internal Security Division with, as I had no other source of intelligence. But from the deliberation in the Home Minister’s office it was clear that they were not happy with the intelligence input that Muslims were aiding terrorists. The way the information was sought from me made it very obvious that the source of this input was being deeply evaluated. There were repeated references to Nanded, Bajrang Dal etc. in their conversation.
The Nanded Affair
The first seed of the canard—that Hindus were also terrorists— was sown with this case. Until then, we had not heard the word ‘Hindu terror’.
However, at the time of the 1st June discussion in Patil’s office, my department in IS had no information about any terror attack in Nanded. The incident had happened, I later learnt, a week before. We also did not have any information on Bajrang Dal in the Internal Security Division. It was in the domain of the Human Rights a
nd National Integration (HR/NI) Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs. This Division was then located in the Lok Nayak Bhavan, Khan Market, in New Delhi at a distance of about 6 km from the North Block. Since there was no specific information sought on anything related to Nanded or Barjrang Dal, I kept quiet.
As per the laid-down procedure in such contingencies, I reduced the interaction in the Minister’s office to writing a report for the knowledge of my seniors and forgot about it. This report was submitted on 1st or 2nd of June 2006. I am sure if one scrounges the records of the period in the Internal Security Division, the copy of the document will be available if it has not met the shredder in the mean time. One can also corroborate the existence of such a report at the relevant time, because in Internal Security Division my staff always kept a diary of papers generated and submitted by me and so did the staff attached to my seniors. Surely, even if one diary of those times is available, one can confirm the existence of my submissions.
More importantly, the bonhomie between the two individuals other than the Home Minister was great and very visible. It may be interesting to recall that Digvijay Singh had later claimed in a media report that he was in personal touch with the police officer who was in the room of the Union Home Minister along with him at that time and obtained specific information on the Nanded attack. Singh had also declared the personal mobile number of this police officer in the media. This can be verified from media reports.
What was intriguing, which no one from the media or otherwise at that time asked, was: what was the relationship between a political leader and an Indian Police Service Officer of a neighbouring State cadre? Indeed, having been the Chief Minister of a State, Singh might have known many a police officer from his own State. But to be so friendly with a serving IPS officer of a neighbouring State is something that begs an answer. Without imputing motives to any individual, what was the police officer doing with a politician of a neighbouring State? AIS Conduct Rules expressly proscribe general hobnobbing of All-India Service personnel with political leaders except in discharge of functions.