If I were the CP, I'd have been seen & heard more

Former top cop Julio Ribeiro lashes out at the way Mumbai police, including Commissioner Hasan Gafoor, handled 26/11

Former top cop Julio Ribeiro lashes out at the way Mumbai police, including Commissioner Hasan Gafoor, handled 26/11

HARD TALK:u00a0 Julio Ribeiro was the commissioner of police in Mumbai from 1982 to 1985. FILE PIC

In a scathing criticism of the way the Mumbai police and Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor, in particular,u00a0 handled the 26/11 attacks former super cop and city police chief Julio Ribeiro has said that had he been commissioner, he "would have been seen and heard more".

Speaking to MiD DAY yesterday on the sidelines of a conference jointly organised by the non-profit organisations Bombay First and London First, Ribeiro said being a more visible head "would have instilled confidence in the force by a 100 per cent."

Calling the city's disaster management system an "unorganised" affair, Ribeiro also had cutting words for city cops, "where even a constable has a political godfather".

"We met the PM on January 10 and will soon present a series of police reforms that need to be implemented immediately, the most important being the introduction of transparency in the system and the next being the elimination of political interference in investigations and administration as has been the case in 26/11," added Ribeiro, not elaborating on the nature of these interferences.

Ribeiro, who was the commissioner of police in Mumbai from 1982 to 1985, was among the national and international speakers at the conference where success and failure stories of New York's 9/11, London's 7/7 and Mumbai's 26/11 were shared.

Earlier criticism

Though Gafoor was spearheading operations from Nariman House within minutes of the attack, he and State Director General of Police A N Roy came under fire from several quarters for not coming on live TV to communicate with the public and the police force in order to instill confidence. Later, slain additional commissioner of police Ashok Kamte's widow, Vineeta, also said that while NSG DG S K Dutta was vocal about how u00a0Major Sanjeep Unnikrishnan, laid down his life fighting the terrorists, the Mumbai police leadership kept quiet about the sacrifice made by their men.

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No lessons learnt

The conference highlighted that even about two months after the attacks, a whopping 53 per cent of corporate India doesn't see the need for a threat analysis. While risk analysis for fire safety and other such risks are expected, more than half simply don't see terror as a possible risk, which is surprising, said Rohit Mahajan, of KPMG Forensic Services that conducted the survey among 60 corporates across India. The survey, KPMG Corporate India and Changing Face of Terrorism Report, also revealed