‘IB ignored inputs on possible Parliament attack’

Unfortunately, the agencies failed to avert the terror strike by not taking the inputs seriously that resulted in the death of six Delhi policemen, two Parliament security service personnel and a gardener. However, five terrorists were also killed in the encounter.

This shocking revelation has been made by former Delhi Police Commissioner, Neeraj Kumar in his recently released book – Dial D for Don-Inside stories of CBI missions. It is important to mention that the 2001 Parliament attack paved way for the biggest ever peace time mobilisation of the Indian military, bringing India and Pakistan close to war and finally resulting in the historic Islamabad statement in 2004 that saw Pakistan promising not to let its soil be used for terrorism against India.

Kumar has claimed that in November 2001, when Rajkot Police was interrogating Asif Raza Khan, an Indian Mujahideen operative, he spilled information on a possible attack on parliament.

“The input was shared with the concerned agency but it was lost somewhere in the maze of intelligence bureaucracy.” 

On December 7, 2001, Asif Raza Khan was killed in an encounter with the Rajkot Police, when he tried to escape from custody. The Indian Parliament was attacked less than a week later. Though the attack was executed by operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM),” Kumar said in his book.

It is important to mention that Asif Raza Khan was a gangster from Kolkata who was overseeing the smuggling of arms across the Indo-Pak border. He was arrested by Delhi Police on October 29, 2001. Kumar was then the Joint Director of the Economic Offences Wing of the CBI.

“I interrogated Asif Raza Khan in an arms and ammunition haul case in which the CBI personnel had arrested four persons of a gang headed by Aftab Ansari. The interrogation was done at the Crime Branch complex at Chanakyapuri. A few days after CBI’s interrogation, the Rajkot Police took over the custody of Asif from the Crime Branch to probe his role in the Bhaskar Paresh kidnapping case of November 2000. During interrogation, he admitted having jihadi leanings and undergoing training at various terror camps in Pakistan,” he said.