Attack in Mumbai -2

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The mandatory back-patting and self-congratulations over, the Mumbai Police top brass is now faced with uncomfortable questions about the quality of their leadership.

The announcement was made after the Shiv Sena and the BJP demanded removal of Roy and Gafoor, along with Home Secretary Chitkala Zutshi. The three have been squarely blamed for the alleged lapses. Despite the pointed fingers, the Mumbai Police is a divided house. One would expect that this crisis would have come as a wake-up call for the police force and their political masters, but the intense infighting and one-upmanship indicates that any kind of change is a long way off.
Be it Gafoor’s refusal to cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team, which was left hanging for three days, or keeping the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) out of investigations, or even leaking their “heroic footage” during operations, the Mumbai Police has left no stone unturned in bungling. All attempts to reach the commissioner and the DG failed as they refused to take calls or respond to faxes.

Senior officers attribute the leadership crisis to the<i> politicisation of the force and the rift between the DG and the commissioner, which intensified during Roy’s tenure as commissioner of Mumbai.</i> This battle is now beginning to impact the investigations with the ATS probing only the CST attacks.
Since its inception in July 2004, all terror attacks in the state, except 26/11, have been investigated by this special squad. However, since the squad comes under the DG, it’s getting a raw deal. Says former DGP of Maharashtra Arvind Inamdar, <i>“Ideally, the investigations should have been given to the ATS. However, since 2000, the Mumbai commissioner of Police started reporting to the home minister and home secretary instead of the DG.</i> This goes against the concept of one force and one leader.”
Says Nitin Gadkari, BJP general secretary, Maharashtra: “The ruling parties want to appoint their officers as district SPs to get their work done. <i>The state DGP A.N. Roy works under the influence of Sharad Pawar, so he never worked with the chief minister.”</i>
It didn’t help matters that while Mumbai was battling terrorists, the appointment of the DG was being contested in the Bombay High Court.
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The division between the office of Mumbai police chief and the DG became apparent when the action shifted to Maharashtra Police headquarters, as Roy coordinated with the chief secretary and the Home Ministry for deployment of the National Security Guard, which effectively led to a division in the force.
It is the failure of leadership that is more disconcerting. <b>As the crisis peaked after the first couple of hours, Gafoor camped outside the Trident-Oberoi in his Honda City, along with Additional Commissioner (Armed Police) Raja E. Pawar and Additional Commissioner (Protection and Security) Vinay M. Kargaonkar</b>. Several senior officers were not even consulted. <i>Captain Anurag Grover, formerly with the 21 PARA (Special Forces) and an eyewitness to the operations at the Trident, says: “There was lack of coordination between agencies that were placed inside and outside the hotel. The heads of the multiple agencies didn’t even have their telephone numbers or radio frequencies.”</i>
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The biggest criticism that is being levelled against the police commissioner is that he sat with his coterie outside the Trident, waiting for the armed forces to arrive, refusing to engage with senior IPS officers.

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