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While many of us in Pakistan have had our doubts about the dossier of the Mumbai attacks, while watching The Pulse with Jasmeen, another investigative report was referenced by India’s own Tehelka.com has done a critical expose on what happened before the Mumbai attacks. The information provided there makes me wonder how much more would be learned if a proper investigation is carried out.

Here are some excerpts:

If the Prime Minister chose to pointedly focus on the crucial issue of ‘information-sharing between various agencies’, it was with a reason. He knew that vital and critical intelligence had simply been ignored. It lay unattended in various files, in the offices of different premier intelligence agencies. He is aware that if all the intelligence that came in two months before the Mumbai terror attack on 26/11 had been put through a ‘sophisticated assessment and analysis’, senior officers could well have been able to join the dots and zero in on the fact that terrorists were going to use the sea route to come into Mumbai and attack five-star hotels. Incredibly, sources in the highest quarters in New Delhi have told TEHELKA that the mobile numbers that were used by the Mumbai terrorists were available with the Intelligence Bureau at least five days before 26/11.

Highly placed sources shared the contents of a ‘Secret’ note that contains 35 mobile numbers. Of the 35 SIM cards, 32 had been purchased from Kolkata and three from Delhi, by “overground” workers of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, and sent to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir by mid- November. The precise contents of the ‘Secret’ note could not have been more direct: “The numbers given below have been acquired from Kolkata by overground workers (OGWs) and have been sent through Pakistan trained militants based in Kashmir to PoK. These numbers are likely to emerge in other parts of the country. These numbers need to be monitored…” The note contains more: “These numbers need to be monitored and the information taken from these numbers regarding the contents of the conversation, current locations of the call detail records are required for further developing the information. The monitoring is possible at Kolkata.”

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On 18 September, for example, the Research and Analysis Wing had intercepted a satellite phone conversation which clearly indicated that a hotel at the Gateway of India in Mumbai would be targeted. Crucially, the intercept also revealed that the sea route would be used to launch this operation. Again, on 24 September, RAW recorded another conversation. This time, the hotels were mentioned by name and they included the Taj, the Sea Rock Hotel and the Marriott hotel. If these inputs were being analysed, it would have become clearer that hotels in Mumbai would be attacked and that the sea route would be used.

THIS IS not all. Again on 19 November, RAW picked up another piece of conversation in which a voice said, “We will reach Bombay between nine and 11.” RAW tracked the coordinates of the call and frighteningly discovered that it came from the sea near Mumbai. RAW passed on this vital piece of information to the IB who in turn sent it to the Navy but the terrorists, who were first aboard the hijacked trawler MV Kuber and subsequently on the inflatable dinghy, still managed to sail into Badhwar Park, ironically, almost at the promised time: between nine and 11.

There is much more to read in this report. It will be interesting to see how fast the India government denies these lapses.