26/11 report: No agency could have handled war-like situation

The Maharashtra Government had constituted the committee,consisting Pradhan and retired IPS officer V Balachandran,in December following assurance to the Assembly that an inquiry would be undertaken to probe if there were any lapses and recommend corrective measures. The committees task was to probe the attack and fix the responsibility for slip-ups,if any,in handling the situation and its aftermath. The Central Government has already apologised for lapses in intelligence. Maharashtra Government did not have any direct intelligence, said Pradhan.

Pradhan added that no police agency could have thwarted the war-like situation. I have praised young police officials for the speed and courage with which they handled the situation. We have made a recommendation of establishing different institutions with commando and QRT type training, said Pradhan,adding that the Government has already taken steps in that direction.

The report,which was meant to probe the action taken on intelligence inputs and conduct of the operation,however,refused to reveal if they had found any police official guilty of lapses. Opposition parties had demanded the inquiry to examine the role of senior cops during the incident.

We did not include any non-officials in the inquiry as it could have gone on forever. The idea was to make recommendations to prepare the Government in case such a situation arises again, said Pradhan.

During the course of its inquiry,the committee interviewed 50 police officers,looked through over 5,000 log entries,and inspected the attacks sites in course of the inquiry. We were not a judicial commission or a commission of inquiry. We were an administrative inquiry and interviewed only government officials, Pradhan said.

The Chief Minister said the report would be placed before the Cabinet to decide on the action to be taken. I have not yet read the report and cannot comment on it. Action will be taken against those found to have erred, said Chavan.