Chowrangi

Tehelka Magazine has revealed the inefficiency of Indian intelligence agencies in its issue of 17th January. In an article entitled “More Evidence Of Lashkar Role, More Evidence Of Our Bungling” by Harinder Baweja it says “…in a superb covert operation, Indian forces had managed to penetrate the ranks of the Lashkar-e- Toiba and plant 35 SIM Indian cards with them. In other words, the SIM cards used by the Mumbai terrorists were like Trojan horses in the LeT ranks. But in a terrible communication and execution bungle the scrupulous follow-up monitoring of the SIMs that should have taken place was not done”. Mukhtar Ahmed, the J&K police constable who procured the SIM cards (used to infiltrate the LeT), has been arrested and jailed.

It is now evident that Indian intelligence agencies were aware that the Mumbai attacks were going to take place, and they may even have known the exact time of the attacks. The article assumes that they did not monitor the three phones using the SIM cards, but it is entirely possible that they did monitor them and deliberately allowed the incidents to take place. Pakistan should ask India to hand over the police constable Mukhtar Ahmed for interrogation.