Kudos for Maria, rap for former police chief

He claimed four of his officers refused to join the anti-terror effort on 26/11. But when the Ram Pradhan Committee report became public on Monday, it was former police commissioner Hasan Gafoor who was at the receiving end.

He claimed four of his officers refused to join the anti-terror effort on 26/11.

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But when the Ram Pradhan Committee report became public on Monday, it was former police commissioner Hasan Gafoor who was at the receiving end.

The report has criticised Gafoor for not staying at the control room as the attack progressed.

“On [the] occasion of a crisis such as Mumbai faced, the CP should have been in the command centre in the control room,” the report states, adding that this might have helped prevent the chaos and duplication of efforts as various police units struggled to respond to the crisis.

Gafoor, no longer head of the Mumbai police force, was shunted to the post of director general (Housing) two months after the attack.

Citing Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), the report states that the joint commissioner for Law & Order should have been in the control room while the joint commissioner for Crime and of the Anti-Terrorism Squad should have worked together to control the attacks.

This did not happen… SOP was not followed, the report states.

The two-member committee of former Union Home secretary Ram Pradhan and former intelligence officer V. Balachandran also spoke to former police commissioners, who said Gafoor should undoubtedly have remained in the control room to enable him to assess the situation better, stay abreast of developments and marshal his forces.

The report, meanwhile, was all praise for Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria for “handling the crisis situation effectively”.

“It has been noted with appreciation the role played by Rakesh Maria in the C/R [control room] in handling a very serious crisis situation extending over three days,” the report states.

Maria in his deposition has defended Gafoor, saying the police chief had faced a difficult choice: Stay in the control room and be accused of trying to shield himself from danger or rush to the scenes of the attacks to boost morale.

Maria said he did not want to sit in the control room either and would have much rather been on the ground, responding with the rest of the force.

In an aside, the report mentions a contradiction in the statements of Gafoor and then joint commissioner (Law & Order) K.L. Prasad.

While Gafoor told the committee it was he who instructed Prasad to head to the Taj, Prasad denied this, saying Director General of Police A.N. Roy had instructed him to head to the besieged luxury hotel as Maria was already handling the control room.

The report also praises Nitin Kakade for having detected an 8 kg RDX bomb in Colaba and sealing off the area.