Errors by Mumbai Police on 26/11 proved fatal !!!

Mumbai: Ram Pradhan Committee report on 26/11 isn’t targeting Mumbai Police and does say that the men showed exemplary courage and bravery but the enormity of the attack led to a few fatal mistakes.

The attack was of unprecedented magnitude, from cold blooded murders at a South Mumbai restaurant to foreign nationals brutally killed in two of the city's landmark hotels.

On 26/11, the Mumbai Police knew they were facing a different scale of terror attack. Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar knew it too and each officer was taking the best and most appropriate course of action according to him in the circumstances.

Even as Mumbai Police faced a serious lack of leadership, there were some unintended but crucial errors of judgement made at the Cama Hospital.

When Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar learnt that there was firing in a lane outside the Cama Hospital, they decided to leave their positions and pursue the terrorists together, instead of spreading out and covering the vantage points around the hospital with the help of junior personnel.

This decision went against the Standard Operating Procedure that Karkare himself had drafted.
The officers did not inform the control room about their decision to pursue the terrorists. As a result, they were isolated from the rest of the force. Under police protocol, it is mandatory for a team or even an officer to communicate his movement from point A to point B.

The officers also made one last fatal error. The Control Room had informed them that the two terrorists were standing near a red car in the Rang Bhavan lane.

Wireless logs now in possession of CNN-IBN, suggest that both Kamte and Karkare had been in constant touch with the Control Room about their movements within the hospital.

But it was perhaps the urgency of the situation and heat of the moment that caused the errors near the Cama Hospital.

Instead of proceeding on foot, the officers chose to take a regular police jeep which restricted their firing and attack options, and did not give them adequate cover.

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab and Ismail Khan seized the opportunity to open fire at almost point-blank range, ending the lives of three top police officers.