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Delhi put on alert over Jaish ‘terrorists’ who never left Pakistan, police left red-faced

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Posters bearing faces of two smiling youth were put up across central Delhi, then pulled down a day later. Special Cell officials offer contradictory explanations.

New Delhi: The Delhi Police Special Cell has been left red-faced after acting on an intelligence input that later turned out to be a hoax. Moreover, when quizzed about the faux pas, Special Cell officials seem to be saying contradictory things, raising suspicions of a cover-up.

On 20 November, the national capital was put on high alert after the intelligence agencies received an input about the presence of two Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) ‘terrorists’ in Delhi.

Posters of the two men dressed in kurtas and skullcaps were put up across central Delhi, alerting the public to keep a lookout for them. However, a day later, the posters were pulled down, raising doubts about the kind of analysis intelligence inputs are put through.

The two smiling youth in the photo were posing beside an Urdu-language milestone that read “Firozpur-9 kilometres, Delhi-360 kilometres”. But it is learnt that the youth never left Islamabad — in fact, Pakistani police authorities held a press conference on 26 November, stating that the two were madrassa students whose photo was “wrongly used” by Indian agencies.


Also read: Pakistan’s ISI is using pics of pretty women & social media to get India’s defence secrets


Contradictory versions

A Special Cell officer insisted there was no doubt that the input was “genuine”. Speaking to ThePrint, the officer said the Special Cell later received another input stating the youth had returned to Islamabad, which is why the posters were pulled down.

“Putting up the posters was a precautionary move. It was a genuine input that we received about the two men entering India from Pakistan. However, later we got another input stating that they have gone back to Pakistan, so we removed the posters that were put up,” the officer said.

“The input that we received was on 17 November, and the press conference that Pakistan did was on 26 November. This is just one of ISI’s moves to portray Indian agencies in bad light.”

However, another Special Cell source said though the input about two men planning to infiltrate into India was genuine, the police did not know their names or faces.

The source also contradicted the other officer, saying the posters were pulled down hastily after the Special Cell received two more inputs stating that the men had failed to cross over, and their plan has been “aborted”.

The source said these inputs came after the Special Cell had already shared the input with the local police, and the posters had come up across central Delhi.

Either way, the incident raises serious questions about the quality of analysis that goes into processing such inputs, and the lack of proper coordination between intelligence agencies.


Also read: Pakistan said to be using radical Islamist party to leash 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed


 

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