Snippets/ Mail Today, December 01, 2008

YOU’D expect someone high as M. L. Kumawat, special secretary ( Internal Security), to be leading the battle from the front. How wrong. The only time he was seen was when he came before TV cameras to say “ I congratulate all channels for the wonderful show these past few days.” With men like this, is it any wonder that questions are periodically raised about how equipped this government is to ensure the safety of our citizens.

But why blame the babu alone? home minister Shivraj Patil has proved time and again he has little clue about the job entrusted to him. He is so obsessed with his sartorial appearances that he would fail to hear a bomb blast if it were to go off outside his office in North Block. At an emergency Cabinet meeting convened to discuss the Mumbai attacks, he could not even get the names of the hotels right. I wasn’t surprised that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh didn’t even bother to call him to a meeting convened to discuss internal security. But it’s not unprecedented. It happened once before when Patil was asked to stay at home and away from his ministry. But this one takes the cake. Last week, many journalists got SMS messages informing them about Patil’s visit to Mumbai.

The SMS also said he would be taking about 200 NSG commandoes for rescue operations. Lest you think it was an anonymous source tipping off journalists, perish the thought. It was Patil’s office at work. I would just like to ask the minister one question: Since when have commandoes started to operate in the full glare of the media?

Failure has rewards for duds in govt too

SUCCESSIVE governments have set up innumerable committees, groups, authorities and what not to deal with emergencies like the one that had riveted the world for much of last week, but when disaster actually struck, their response was tepid as usual. I was in Mumbai last Wednesday to record a show for Aaj Tak TV when the terrorists sneaked in and let mayhem loose.
Though I was staying at the Taj Land’s End in Bandra, as soon as I heard the news in the hotel restaurant where I was having my dinner, I persuaded a reluctant taxi driver to drop me and a couple of friends near the Trident.
We reached there around midnight only and came face to face with the near indifference of those in charge to the human tragedy that was just unfolding. Police Commissioner Hassan Gafoor was there, accompanied by his senior officers, all of whom were standing outside the Trident and holding discussions among themselves.
A little away stood a group of Navy commandoes who I assume are based in Mumbai and therefore were the first to reach the spot. But apart from being there, they didn’t seem to be doing anything of consequence. Can’t blame them, the young men perhaps were waiting for orders from above. Johny Joseph, Maharashtra’s chief secretary, who was supposed to call the shots in the absence of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh who was away in Kerala presumably taking a good ayurvedic massage, was nowhere to be seen.
He is also the chief of the state crisis management committee. I don’t know if Johny Jospeh either sought or got any inputs that would have given him an idea of how to go about the job. The National Security Guards didn’t arrive in the city until 5 am the next day. If little Johny had acted with the urgency that the situation demanded, the elite force could have arrived at least four hours earlier. Those were precious hours lost.
But honestly, only a fool would have expected anything but this from the man. Three years ago, when Mumbai was devastated by the worst floods in living memory, Johny was the city’s Municipal Commissioner. There were a million voices demanding his head for the local administration’s shoddy response to the calamity in which more than 1,000 people died. But far from punishing him for his incompetence, he was rewarded and promoted to chief secretary.

Modi, the innate scene stealer

FROM the PM and the BJP’s PM- in- waiting to the selfanointed PM in waiting. On a day when Vilasrao Deshmukh, Maharashtra Chief Minister, dared do nothing more than whizz past the Taj and Oberoi in his bulletproof motorcade and Mumbai’s goons famed for targeting outsiders chose to stay indoors, Narendra Modi landed in Mumbai and held forth outside the Trident Oberoi in full glare of the world media. Though there are few administrators with better anti- terrorism credentials, Modi was, in fact, an unwelcome visitor.

On Nov 27, the man who has relentlessly and ruthlessly pursued terrorists in his own state had telephoned Deshmukh and Dy CM RR Patil and expressed a desire to visit the city but was told to defer it until the operations at the Taj, Trident and Nariman House were over. Modi would perhaps have gone by Deshmukh’s advice had the Maharashtra CM, not long afterwards, not tried to inject some needless politics into it.

Already under attack for fiddling while his showpiece city burnt, Deshmukh was further riled by news reports which said his government sat on tip- offs from Gujarat intelligence agencies which warned about the likelihood of terrorists using fishing trawlers and such like to enter Mumbai via the sea route. The reports were rubbished by Deshmukh and his aides at the Mantralaya, who said the warning from the Gujarat authorities were very general in nature and the inputs contained no specific information that could have averted this tragedy.

An incensed Modi then dispensed with protocol and arrived in Mumbai and headed for the Trident. Outside the hotel, he virtually taunted the Maharashtra government by announcing Rs 1 crore each for the three slain top Maharashtra police officers — as against the Rs 5 lakh that the Deshmukh government gave. And then drove over to ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s residence to commiserate with his family.

How ironic! The scourge of green terrorists paying homage to the bane of saffron terrorists.