Were it not for our security establishment's love of schadenfreude , the public embarrassment of including in a list of 50 ‘most wanted' terrorists supposedly hiding in Pakistan the name of a man who is very much in India could have been avoided. Despite living in Thane and making regular court appearances, Wazhul Kamar Khan, an accused in the 2003 Mulund train blast, figured as Number 41 in the fugitives list India handed over to Pakistani Interior Ministry officials in March. The Pakistanis took away the list and there the matter might well have ended. But it was the desire to add to Islamabad's discomfiture in the days after U.S. special forces killed Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan that led Indian officials to rake up the list and plant a story about it in the media. Their aim, presumably, was to remind the world that Pakistan continues to harbour terrorists of all sorts, a completely unnecessary move given the prevailing international perceptions post-Abbottabad. If anything, the leaking of the list was a petty ‘bilateral' gambit that detracted from the ‘global' dimension of the Pakistani military's dalliance with terrorism. That it also contained a serious error which Pakistan is likely to use to question India's facts is unforgivable.
Truth to tell, the goof-up over Mr. Khan's whereabouts is part of a wider pathology afflicting the Indian system: the lack of professionalism in the conduct of security and foreign policy. When it comes to India's relations with Pakistan, or any country for that matter, the sole window for public pronouncements and even unofficial briefings ought to be the Ministry of External Affairs or the Prime Minister's Office. What we have instead is a free-for-all in which top generals, bureaucrats, and even defence scientists feel free to make statements — or plant stories — that have a crucial bearing on foreign policy. Army chief V.K. Singh and DRDO head V.K. Saraswat have both publicly boasted about India's ability to mount an Abbottabad-type operation. The Pakistani military, under fire at home for the OBL fiasco, latched on to General Singh's statement and used it to stoke nationalist fears about the threat posed by India. Last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wisely noted he could not be expected to discuss military matters in front of the media. But it is not clear the message has gone down. As far as the ‘50 most wanted' list is concerned, the error should also serve as a reminder to our intelligence agencies and internal security bureaucracy that their time is best spent getting their house in order rather than hamming it on a diplomatic stage for which they have neither talent nor aptitude.
