IB needs to be overhauled and brought under democratic norms

Delivering the fourth RN Kao Memorial Lecture organized by Research and Anlysis Wing the vice president Mohammad Hamid Ansari said that internal and external intelligence in the Indian system did not report to the same minister, the possibility of entrusting this wok to the Standing Committee on Home Affairs may not meet the requirement. He argued for greater oversight and accountability of the country’s intelligence to meet the needs of good governance in a democratic society. There is also desire for openness. This sentiment of the vice president should be given serious thought, analysed and accepted after thorough objective discussion.
The need for this process was felt for quite some times. In fact it was felt right at the time of independence. There was a notice sent out to watch out for RSS chief Guru Golwalker after the Home Secretary was informed about a huge cache of weapons and details of a secret plan of RSS for attacks on the Muslims in the aftermath of the partition. He advised Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to take action. Golwalker was very much in the neighbourhood of Delhi but the intelligence field workers failed to serve the notice to him. What amazed the home secretary was inaction of Nehru in the face of actionable intelligence. In another case Rajnath Singh was the Chief Minister as well as Home Minister of Madhya Pradesh when the kar sevaks on Sabarmati express passed through his state. According to IG (Intelligence) of Gujarat BR Sreekumar the Home Minister of MP did not submit intelligence report on the behavior of the unruly passengers of the train. Thus the rowdy elements were given safe passage that emboldened them to persevere in their willful behavior like quarreling with Muslim hawkers at Godhra station and abducting a Muslim woman washing clothes in the vicinity of the tracks.
An actionable intelligence can save a situation. In Gwalior and other parts of Madhya Pradesh there were frequent attacks on Muslims leaving for Pakistan. One of the most remarkable marauders was a Punjabi youth Madanlal Pawa. Mahatma Gandhi came to know about it and prevailed upon the rulers to curb in the marauders. Pawa had to leave for Maharashtra. He settled in Bombay and moved to Ahmednager where he organized attacks on Muslim commercial establishments and collected extortion money from them. He came in contact with Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte and became a part of the crime syndicate that finally assassinated Gandhi. It is now known that Apte spent the last night with the daughter of the police commissioner of the metropolis before leaving for Delhi. Gopal Godse’s wife carried her daughter Himani to bid farewell to her husband. She and he husband were resolute in the mission. A part of the resolute nature reappeared in Himani Savarkar (nee Himani Godse) when she called for bomb for bomb retaliation. (As it ultimately turned out that the members of her own Abhinav Bharat had exploded bombs and Muslims were blamed.) All these facts are recorded in history. And yet people came to know her and her Abhinav Bharat only when Hemant Kakare arrested Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit. We would not have known this but for the professionalism of Karkare. Thus the Augean stables of Intelligence Bureau (and for that matter the ATS, Crime Branch Police, the CBI or the numerous other intelligence agencies) call for purging those who have failed in the performance of their duties.
The most deplorable situation prevailing in the country is in Gujarat. Chief Minister Narendra Modi told a huge public meeting on December 4, 2007: “They want me to answer why I killed Sohabuddin. Sohrabuddin was a notorious criminal who had links with Pakistan and from whose farm house aAK 47s were recovered. So what should I have done with him? Pooja? Or should I have called up Sonia Behen before he was killed? I am thumping my chest and declaring that Sohrabuddin’s encounter had taken place on the dharti of Gujarat. If I have done something wrong, hang me.” What kind of intelligence agencies he was having in his state that even after the pogroms of Muslim in 2002 he still enjoys so much of over confidence and impunity?
Even now the Supreme Court is asking his government to supply the apex court with his speeches of September 2002. What have the IB, R&AW and crime branch of the police of the state and the Centre been doing there? Most of his speeches have flagrantly violated the constitutional acts as well as criminal laws. In September 2002 he castigated the Muslims by calling the relief camps as child producing factories producing future criminals and terrorists!
Those who have worked with R&AW or IB, as well as those who are still in service do not bother to notice that there is a subtle change. Now as never before there is a generational shift that is calling for demystifying the government agencies’ work. In the wake of Karkare’s investigation into Malegaon blast of 2008 and the circumstances of his death, the IB and ATS under Raghuvanshi as well as Crime Branch Police under Rakesh Maria have acquired notoriety of sabotaging work entrusted to them.
When R&AW had given 35 phone numbers to IB to monitor why did IB fail to comply when some of the numbers of the cell phones were used by the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on 26/11? And why did the Crime Branch Police withdraw surveillance of the Bhadwar Park landing? Hyderabad has a piquant situation where Maulana Naseerudin has just been released from prison. He was in prison for six years. The police failed to prove terrorism charges against him. His four sons are also accused but he says that they are all innocent.
Maulana Falahi’s case is even more tragic. His son Mujahid Saleem was shot dead by Gujarat police inspector Narendra Amin in the police chowki in Hyderbad where he had gone to investigate but Amin was put behind bars as he had shot dead Sohrabuddin’s wife Kauserbi and was involved in the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin. The Maulana’s wife Lateefa Begum says that the police have been targeting her family for 15 years. She had demanded (habeas corpus) the police to produce her son Mohammad Amjad Khwaja in court. The next day the police produced him in Chennai. He had spoken to her twelve days earlier and was in Jeddah doing a job. He was returning home when contact was lost. The police produced him at a press conference on Sunday January 17, 2010 and accused him of being involved in the blast at a police chowki in Hyderabad in October 2005 and conspiracy to kill right wing leader Indrasen Reddy of BJP in 2004, attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, attacks on Lumbini Park and Gokul chat in 2007. He is now called the HuJi operative in India. They allegedly found foreign currency, Saudi Riyal, Bangladeshi Tikka, UAE Dirham. This is a familiar pattern of trapping Muslim youths: slamming so many charges against them that they would have lost decades in prison before they would be acquitted. That serves a purpose. That is, the Muslims are blamed and ill will is created against them. That covers up the terrorists activities of the Hindutva groups which many in the IB and ATS want.
Should Khwaja also spend a good deal of his youth in prison on charges which cannot be proved except confession under duress? Lateefa’s another son Abdul Kaleem was also released after the police failed to prove anything against him. They had accused him for bombing at Mecca mosque in May 2007. In another case he was booked for shifting RDX and handling SIM cards. Incidentally it is relevant to note that Abhinav Bharat and Shrikant Prasad Purohit are believed to be responsible for the attack. The high court has already released a batch of Muslim youths who were kept in illegal detention at private farm houses and tortured and subsequently put in prison by the police.
IB’s apprehending Khwaja raises doubts because he was returning from Jedda. When his mother lost contact she approached the court /police and demanded them to produce him in court. The next day the police produced him at press conference. This follows a pattern ala arrest of Abrar Ahmed accused in Malegaon blast of 2006 in which IB and the police at the bidding of IB arrested innocent youths and falsely accused them of terrorism and made them languish their youth in jails. Why did the police wait until Lateefa approached the court? She also feared that her son would be killed in fake encounter like Sohrabuddin. After all it was Sohabuddin’s brother who approached the court and filed habeas corpus regarding his brother’s wife Kauserbi that exposed the fake encounter and extrajudicial killing.
Vice President Ansari accepted that operational intelligence does require secrecy but the history of arrests in Hyderabad, Malegaon, Ahmedabad show that IB and its field officers in the states have no credible record. To say that every country gets the intelligence agencies it deserves, as B.Raman remaked, is a slur on the people of the country. Raman was neck deep in R&AW and should know better.