Top police officials under fire for errors of judgment MUMBAI:
Errors of judgment and top-level leadership lapses marred the Mumbai police’s management of the first, critical hours of last month’s Lahskar-e-Taiba attack — errors that are now driving calls from for a full review of the force’s crisis response system.
Mumbai’s top police officials, highly placed government sources said, failed to take charge of the Police Control Room, the nerve centre of the city police’s overall command structure. Nor did they use the force’s wireless system to rally their men demoralised by the loss of several of officers, notably the heroic joint commissioner of police and chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Hemant Karkare. Instead, one top official chose to station himself and two aides inside a bullet-proof vehicle parked at the National Centre for the Performing Arts Building near the Oberoi Hotel, thus cutting himself off from the broad flow of operations.
Coordination at the Police Control Room fell to a committee of three joint commissioners of police — Crime Branch chief Rakesh Maria, his Law and Order counterpart, K.L. Prasad, and Administration head Bhagwantrao More. Without authority over subordinates outside their own chain of command, the control room team achieved little. Mumbai’s police failed to initiate a thoroughgoing lockdown of major roads, to block the potential movement of the terrorist groups. Nor were teams of police personnel dispatched to other potential targets. Worst of all, police and Special Reserve Police personnel stationed in the suburbs were not rushed to reinforce the small, ill-armed groups engaged in the early fighting.
Mumbai’s top police officials, highly placed government sources said, failed to take charge of the Police Control Room, the nerve centre of the city police’s overall command structure. Nor did they use the force’s wireless system to rally their men demoralised by the loss of several of officers, notably the heroic joint commissioner of police and chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Hemant Karkare. Instead, one top official chose to station himself and two aides inside a bullet-proof vehicle parked at the National Centre for the Performing Arts Building near the Oberoi Hotel, thus cutting himself off from the broad flow of operations.
Coordination at the Police Control Room fell to a committee of three joint commissioners of police — Crime Branch chief Rakesh Maria, his Law and Order counterpart, K.L. Prasad, and Administration head Bhagwantrao More. Without authority over subordinates outside their own chain of command, the control room team achieved little. Mumbai’s police failed to initiate a thoroughgoing lockdown of major roads, to block the potential movement of the terrorist groups. Nor were teams of police personnel dispatched to other potential targets. Worst of all, police and Special Reserve Police personnel stationed in the suburbs were not rushed to reinforce the small, ill-armed groups engaged in the early fighting.
No comments:
Post a Comment