FRONT PAGE | Monday, November 23, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Rattled Chavan Govt orders probe into Gafoor claim
TN Raghunatha | Mumbai
Ahead of the first anniversary of the 26/11 attacks, an embarrassed Maharashtra Government has ordered an inquiry into the allegation by then Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor that four senior IPS officers had “refused to be on the ground and take on the terrorists” during the Mumbai mayhem.
Additional Secretary (Home) Chanda Iyengar will hold an inquiry into Gafoor’s charge against Parambir Singh then the additional Commissioner of Police, Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), KL Prasad, then Joint Police Commissioner (Law and Order), Additional CP Crime Branch Deven Bharti and K Venkateshan, then additional CP, South, that they failed in their duty during the 26/11 attacks period.
Iyengar will also inquire as to what prompted Gafoor, who is currently State Director General (Housing), to speak openly about the “questionable role” of four IPS officers, in an interview published in a weekly magazine.
State Minister RR Patil, who has ordered the inquiry, has gone on record, saying that Gafoor had exceeded his brief and that if the latter had grievances against the four IPS officers, he could have expressed them before the Ram Pradhan Committee which probed the role of police officials during the 26/11 attacks.
It is not clear yet that the inquiry ordered by the State Government will be a full-fledged and a formal one or just an informal departmental one.
Iyengar is expected to meet Gafoor on Monday, in her effort to clarify matters with him first.
In his interview published in the latest issue of The Week magazine, Gafoor said: “A section of senior police officers refused to be on the ground and take on the terrorists. By doing so, they chose to ignore the need of the hour.”
In the same interview, which has created a furore in the state IPS circles, Gafoor named the four officers, when he spoke of police officers who failed in their duty. “I told you there were a handful. For example, KL Prasad refused to come to the Trident and decided against hitting the roads. Devena Bharti, K Venkatesham and Parambhir Singh did not appear keen on responding to the situation as it kept dawning on us,” Gafoor said.
He went on to add: “Yes, there was dearth of eagerness on the part of a handful of senior officers to be on the ground during those days”.
Gafoor --- who is said to have been criticised in the yet-to- be-made-public Ram Pradhan Committee report for his inept handling of the situation - indirectly suggested in the interview that “political considerations” played a part in his shunted out as the police commissioner. When asked if believed that he was made a scapegoat, he said in the interview, “I cannot comment on that. But yes, political considerations do play a part in lot of things that are decided and ratified. It is politics and much more beyond.”
Disturbed by the allegations against them, the four accused police officers have, meanwhile, lodged a strong protest with the State government against Gafoor for making “baseless” allegations against them.
So much so that Parambir Singh has threatened to file a defamation case against Gafoor. “I will take take appropriate legal action for the malicious and defamatory statements given by a senior officer not befitting his stature and rank. All channels have footage of my firing at the vehicle hijacked by terrorists. I was at the Trident at the instruction of the CP and had entered inside several times to rescue & get the terrorists’ location. I was the one to rescue Arun Jadhav, the first officer to reach Trident and Chowpatty,” Singh said.
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