Sunday Times 2
Ominous and dangerous signs neglected
The failure of the intelligence gathering apparatus of the Police Department is being discussed in different forums. Questions are being asked as to who was responsible for the failure to act on the intelligence available well ahead of the Muslim extremists’ attacks on Easter Sunday.
Every nation maintains specialised units to gather intelligence about any enemy threat.
Information is gathered by covert and overt methods. Overt methods are generally freely accessible if the intelligence officers look for such information. Newspaper articles, publications, leaflets and any other notification by the target organisation, and public meetings organised by target groups, are sources of overt information. Another source of overt information is through interrogation of suspects arrested in connection with offences relating to national security. Interrogation by local police is unlikely to yield much information, but when such suspects are interrogated by Officers of specialised units such as the CID, TID and Special Branch, valuable information can be extracted.
Covert Information
Information through covert or secret means is a professional task, where the enemy organisation is targeted and penetrated by way of planting an agent or informant, who will be working for the intelligence agency for financial or other benefits
Penetrating or infiltrating an organisation is an onerous, painstaking and risky task. Cultivating an informant or an agent from the targeted enemy organisation is replete with danger until the informant or agent is tested for many years, as he could turn out to be a double agent.
Intelligence evaluation
Intelligence is the refined and polished information gathered through overt and covert methods. It needs to be evaluated, collated, analysed and communicated.
The evaluation process must be done in a timely fashion. Otherwise, the volume of raw information collected becomes unmanageable. Once a proper evaluation is conducted, the next step is collation.
Collation
The evaluated information before being processed into intelligence should go through an important phase of collation. Ferreting out useless, irrelevant information, orderly filing and arranging of collected materials are the important aspects of collation.
Analysis
Once a proper evaluation is completed, the most critical aspect in an intelligence process, the task of analysing, begins to arrive at some sort of pattern and meaning.
Communication/Distribution
Once the intelligence officers entrusted with the task of collecting, collating and analysing information/intelligence received, arrives at a reasonable conclusion, the outcome has to be communicated to the superior authorities, who should be informed on a “Need to know” basis.
Writing on the Wall
The activities and the intelligence gathered from foreign sources on the Muslim extremists elements had been communicated to government and law enforcement officers. In addition, Muslim religious leaders, who were totally against the radical Muslim movement, the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), also had been providing information. Strangely, no action has been taken by successive government, intelligence agencies or the law enforcement agencies to monitor the activities of the group’s leaders or detain them for questioning.
Killing of two constables
The killing of two police constables who were on a night duty at Vavunitivu in the Batticaloa district was conveniently foisted on the LTTE and a suspect from Kilinochchi was arrested and remanded. It is reliably learnt that the arrest was made by TID officers. There has been no proper investigation or intelligence gathering as to how or who committed the killings. If the law enforcement agencies, assisted by the Intelligence units, had gone deeply into the case, they would have perhaps stumbled on information that the killings were committed by Muslim extremists, who later carried out the Easter Sunday attacks.
Mawanella
Several Buddhist statues were damaged in the Mawanella area, and some Muslim youths were arrested. Some of them were reported to be leading members of the NTJ. However, the law enforcement agencies could not detain these suspects for a longer period and go deeply into their activities due to alleged political intervention, and they were released on bail.
Vanathavillu
The large haul of explosives and dynamites was detected in Vanathavillu in the Puttalam district and some Muslim youths who were connected to the Mawanella case were arrested. Due to political interference, the Police could not conduct a thorough investigation to establish a connection between the Mawanella incidents and the explosives.
Attack on minister’s Secretary
The coordinating secretary of Minister Kabeer Hashim was shot and seriously injured. Here too, the Police did not go deeply into the reason for the crime. According to information, this was also carried out by the extremists connected to the Easter bomb blasts.
According to the information available, the intelligence unit of the Police had vital information passed on by India’s intelligence agency by about April 4 this year. It appears that the intelligence arm of the Sri Lanka Police and the government members did not take this information with the seriousness it deserved.
The activities of the NTJ have been known to the law enforcement agencies, but they had failed to probe deeply into their activities. Being in possession of information passed on by religious leaders of this country as far back as 2014, the militant group, backed by some political heavyweights, had established itself not only in Kattankudy, but in other areas as well. The ominous signs known to the police and the government had been ignored and discarded.
Responsibility and accountability
The failure of various agencies to foresee the impending carnage despite the availability of intelligence is a serious matter that should be severely dealt with while the persons responsible should be held accountable and punished.
(The writer is a retired
Deputy Inspector General of Police)