Author: Bhavna Vij- Aurora
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 3, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=25105
Introduction: Operation Sarp Vinash
exposes huge intelligence failure; Army chief shows documents to Advani;
camps started 4 yrs ago
Operation Sarp Vinash has unearthed
documents that show the Military Intelligence and Intelligence Bureau failed
to sense the scale of activities in Hill Kaka for about four years.
Army chief General N.C. Vij met
Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani last week and showed him the documents
recovered.
Those included receipts of grocery
shops and PCOs frequented by terrorists in Surankote. Among them is of
a call made to Gandhinagar on September 23, 2002, a day before the attack
on Akshardham temple.
The place - which the field intelligence
units of both the IB and the Army thought was a mere transit point for
terrorists - turned out to be a full-fledged command and control centre
for almost all tanzeems (terrorist outfits) operating in J&K. There
were 250-350 terrorists living there at any given time, making it one of
the biggest hideouts south of Pir Panjal.
Other documents recovered from there
include a register of accounts, giving details of money transaction worth
Rs 1.8 crore between October 2001 and May 2003. Funds were being distributed
from the base to various terrorist organisations including Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Al Badar.
Receipts of Surankote provision
shops found in the base show that the terrorists were buying grocery items
in bulk and paying five to six times more than what the locals paid. Receipts
show purchase of as much as 50 kg wheat flour, 50 kg rice and equal amounts
of various pulses, as also huge quantities of eggs and mutton.
''All these things were being purchased
and then carried up to the base. It's shocking that it escaped all the
field intelligence units,'' sources said. And subsequent investigations
revealed that locals in Surankote, including some businessmen, had a fairly
good idea about what was happening but they chose to remain quiet since
they were benefiting from the free flow of money.
The same was the case with the Bakarwals,
the shepherds frequenting the area for grazing of their animals. ''Even
they had been paid handsomely to remain silent,'' sources added. The Bakarwals
did not give out any information either to the Intelligence Bureau or the
Military Intelligence for the past four years, the time since the base
is supposed to have been active.
The fact that there was some activity
in the region was known to security forces as 110 terrorists were killed
in smaller operations since 2001.
It was finally the Israeli-made
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Herons, of the Indian Air Force (IAF)
which gave a reasonable idea about the extent of the operations, sources
said.
The base was also being used for
indoctrination of Kashmiri youth before they were exfiltrated into Kotli
and various other terrorist training camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir
(PoK). The sheer magnitude of terrorist operations at Hill Kaka left the
security forces stumped.
Now, intelligence outfits have been
asked to pull up their socks and gear up to the task of locating the 200
terrorists who succeeded in escaping from the base.
The Army managed to kill about 100
terrorists and more than 200 are missing, believed to be either still hiding
in the region or perhaps having crossed into PoK.
Advani, extremely concerned about
the intelligence failure, made his displeasure apparent to both, the Army
chief and Director Intelligence Bureau K.P. Singh.
A Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)
had been set up as per the Group of Ministers (GoM) recommendation following
the Kargil war in 1999.
The DIA is supposed to ensure better
coordination among various intelligence agencies including the IB, Military
Intelligence and R&AW.
The Deputy Prime Minister also spoke
to Lt General Davar, chief of DIA, and asked him to streamline the agency
and get more actionable intelligence.
