With intelligence agencies and security forces locked in a blame game over Mumbai terror attacks, Union Minister Kapil Sibal said something was obviously "wrong" with them
NEW DELHI: With intelligence agencies and security forces locked in a blame game over Mumbai terror attacks, Union Minister Kapil Sibal said something was obviously "wrong" with them for not attaching "seriousness" to inputs about possible strikes on the financial capital.
Sibal also regretted that government could not prevent the unprecedented attacks and said "we are sorry, we are really sorry. I am genuinely very very upset... More than embarassed, I am enraged."
Noting that there were alerts and information, he said, "no seriousness was given to that information...Someone said it was not actionable information. The point is obviously there is something wrong with the agencies which look at that information and analyse it."
"What was the credence, seriousness given to the information. This is the point," Sibal said in an apparent reference to the remark made by Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta that there was no "actionable" inputs about the attacks.
The Science and Technology Minister noted it was right to say that there cannot be something as "horrendous" as this which happened "without there being security lapses or lapses in intelligence".
"I look at the enormity of what happened and I look at the fact that this could have happened on a plan which was executed overnight. Obviously there have been serious lapses," he said.
Asked whether he would seek forgiveness from the countrymen, he said, "there is no question of forgiveness. We have to now fight this and fight this together...what is the point of my saying forgive us. Somebody will say to me this is all very well for you to say forgive you."
"I am sure that there was information of some sort or the other that such a particular attack could not have been executed without long term planning and training. And down the road obviously there were some lapses," Sibal said.
When told that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had in 2004 said that "country will be safe in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's hands", he said, "nobody at that time, neither Soniaji nor the Prime Minister nor any of us could have imagined. Remember, this attack was something very different."
He said the Mumbai attacks were a "wake up call" for the entire country and the government to put in place a system which can fight such attacks.
Asked about the delay in chosing a successor to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vialsrao Deshmukh, he said to replace a leader was not an easy job.
"It is a difficult to choice," he said.
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