One of India’s most wanted terrorists, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, continues to remain in the protection of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence which frequently shifts him from one location to another across the country to evade Indian security agencies’ scanner. It is for this reason that the home ministry, fed with inputs from the security establishment, on May 5 admitted that Indian intelligence has not been able to pinpoint his whereabouts.
While this stand has caused a huge embarrassment to the Narendra Modi government, intelligence sources disclosed that Dawood continues to enjoy the protection of the ISI which, evidently, is doing a better job in preserving the fugitive from law than its Indian counterparts in seeking him out.
Pakistani Fears
And just about the time that the incompetence of India’s intelligence agencies was in full public glare, a conference of Pakistan’s corps commanders in Rawalpindi, where the army’s General Headquarters is located, took “serious notice of RAW’s (India’s external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing) involvement in whipping up terrorism in Pakistan.”
What is unprecedented about this alarm is that it is part of a press release issued by the Pakistani Inter-Services Public Relations directorate. Either Pakistan really treats RAW as a potent threat or Indian intelligence has indeed begun renewed efforts to mount covert operations in some “disturbed” areas of our western neighbour.
But is Indian intelligence really capable of undertaking covert operations in Pakistan when it does not even have the capability to trace Dawood?
The List Blunder
In fact, the goof-up in Parliament on May 5, which began with minister of state for home Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary proclaiming that Dawood cannot be traced and followed by his colleague Kiren Rijiju’s counter-claim that the executor of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts was very much in Pakistan, is reminiscent of the blunder that the CBI and the Intelligence Bureau made in 2011 over India’s most wanted fugitives. At that time, details emerged that a few persons on India’s list of 50 most wanted terrorists/criminals, handed over to Islamabad, were lodged in various Indian prisons and not in hiding in Pakistan.
A top source in the National Investigating Agency, which was established in 2008 specifically to probe terror-related cases, claimed that till a year ago Dawood lived at Clifton Road in Karachi’s Defence Colony locality under heavy security cover. This is really old information and like the failure to update the list of 50, the Dawood case reflects Indian intelligence’s near-complete lack of information on underworld don’s whereabouts which is the result of our security agencies’ inability to penetrate the Pakistani army or ISI.
Will Doval Act?
Ever since Dawood sought refuge in Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai serial blasts, Indian security agencies have routinely highlighted his Clifton Road address in their classified files. Hamstrung by little or no intelligence assets – human or electronic – the accuracy of the Clifton Road address cannot be relied upon.
In the mid-Nineties, there was at least one feeble attempt to assassinate Dawood, but the plan went nowhere because Indian intelligence did not get a political clearance. What is baffling is that the most recent bungling by the security agencies has taken place when old Pakistan hand and much acclaimed former Intelligence Bureau director Ajit Doval, with special operations skills, is now National Security Advisor to the prime minister. Both the IB director and the Research and Analysis Wing secretary report to Doval who is known to be a no-nonsense hard task master, especially on intelligence gathering in Pakistan.
While the blunder calls for some tough action against errant officers, either in RAW or IB, or both, it is doubtful that Doval will wield the stick; heads may not roll when they should. The Indian security establishment has a good track record in evading responsibility and not owning up failures, monumental or otherwise.