PUNE: The Maharashtra government has announced the appointment of a two-member panel to probe lapses in the Mumbai attacks in November.
A month after the four-day-long mayhem ended in Mumbai, the government yesterday announced the setting up of the panel in the state legislature on the last day of the winter session which ended last night in Nagpur.
The state Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who made the announcement, said that the panel would consist of former bureaucrat Ram Pradhan and former spymaster V. Bhalachandran, a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Maharashtra cadre who was posted in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Chavan said the panel would probe into various aspects of the attacks in details and also look whether there were any lapses in its handling.
The panel was appointed following uproar in the winter session of the state legislature during which the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance built up pressure on the Congress-NCP-led Democratic Front (DF) state government and demanded that state Director General of Police Anami Naryan Roy, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor and Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Chitkala Zutsi be removed form their posts for lapses on their part in handling the post-attack situation.
Chavan assured them that a probe panel would look into the issue in detail.
According to a senior state Home Ministry official, Pradhan would be given the status of a Cabinet minister while Balachandran would be given the status of a minister of state.
Meanwhile, officials of the Pune unit of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad swooped down on a Muslim religious place on Tuesday evening and arrested a cleric Hussain Shabbir Nainuddin Gangajali, who is suspected to be an operative of the Indian Mujahedeen (IM).
ATS source said that the suspect is alleged to have a role in the July bomb blasts in Bangalore and is also said to be a close aide of Iqbal Bhatkal, brother of Riyaz Bhatkal, the founder member of IM.
Gangajali, the source said, was a resident of Karwar in Karnataka state and has been staying with a close relative in the city for the past few months.
He was known as Maulana (cleric) and alleged to have grown a beard to conceal his identity. The ATS officials have informed the federal and state agencies of Gujarat and Karnataka about Gangajali’s detention.
