The conversations were said to have been between the valley-based LeT commander Abdullah Uni and Abu Hurreira, PoK-based coordinator of the militant outfit.
A plethora of security agencies in Jammu and Kashmir ironically appears to occasionally complicate their tasks, judging by the high behind-the-scenes drama that preceded prime minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Srinagar last week.
Two days before Singh flew in on an overnight visit on June 7 "intercepts" of telephonic conversations between purported militant commanders picked up by the army sent alarm bells ringing both in Delhi and Srinagar so much so that suggestions were made for the visit to be postponed.
The conversations were said to have been between the valley-based LeT commander Abdullah Uni and Abu Hurreira, PoK-based coordinator of the militant outfit. They purportedly discussed a plan of a suicide attack on the prime minister's convoy.
The army, which has been on the backfoot after the alleged fake encounter controversy, is believed to have passed on the information to Delhi from where it was relayed to the state authorities.
The army recommendation was for the visit to be postponed or the venue of Singh's public function to be shifted to the cantonment.
The state authorities heard the intercepts and concluded that these did not not match the voice samples of Uni or Huerreira. In any case, they had taken utmost security measures.
The state political leadership then swung into action and after consultations with both the army and the police authorities decided against either postponement of the visit or shifting the venue.
The prime minister's visit then went ahead as scheduled albeit under a massive security cover. Singh spent five hours at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) attending a University convocation and meeting representatives of several political parties.
There are a series of other incidents of crossed wires between various security agencies complicating their tasks. Once in a while "sources" feeding these agencies exploit the situation.
For instance, several weeks ago one such "source" planted fictitious information with some defence officials about a possible terror attack in Mumbai, Delhi and Gujarat.
When this was investigated, it turned out that the "source", a resident of Srinagar, had simultaneously called up LeT offering to carry out a terror attack "if properly rewarded".
A western intelligence agency is believed to have picked up this "traffic" which resulted in a warning to American citizens in April not to visit crowded markets in Delhi and some other cities.
Security experts are of the view that given the situation in the state it is imperative to have diverse intelligence sources and some amount of turf war was inevitable. "But agencies should not not play games against each other," they said.
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