Pak ‘terror boat’ occupants were in touch with Karach New Delhi, Jan 3: There is much speculation surrounding the incident that took place off Gujarat coast, in which a Pakistan boat suspected to be carrying explosives blew up before it was intercepted by the Coast Guard. While it is being said that the intercepts that were picked up did not entirely point to a terror related incident, the fact of the matter is that the agencies were not willing to take any chance what so ever. The exact intercepts suggested that there was a boat making its advent into Indian waters. There was something fishy about this boat and a vigil needed to be kept on it. Since 9 AM on December 31 the coast guard kept a watch on this boat which made a steady advent into the Indian waters. The first intercept was picked up at 8 AM. Then there was another at 12.30 PM. By the time it was 5 PM the third intercept was also picked. The coast guard at the time of the actual spotting had found that the boat had moved 10 kilometres into Indian waters. The operation was an extremely specific one and only a select few were in the know of the operation. The agencies wanted to take no chance in leaking information to the neighbouring states for two reasons. One they were confident that the boat would not sail past them and secondly too much sharing of information would have led to leaking of the same as was seen in the 26/11 attack. The coast guard wanted to take nothing to chance and there is a line that is followed today in the Indian navy and that is any Pakistan boat moving around suspiciously is perceived to be a jihadi threat. An officer part of the process which is piecing together the evidence tells that there was a lot of chatter that was being picked up. It appeared to be a terror operation since the men on the boat was always in touch with a person in Karachi. It appeared as though he was the handler guiding them into the Indian waters. Ample opportunity was given to them to surrender, but they decided to blow themselves up along with the boat. On the allegation that the boat may have been fired upon by the coast guard the officer denies it and says that it is easy to speculate. The Pakistanis do not give up that easily and they did try to dodge us. When we knew we had control over the movement of the boat, we decided to circle around by giving them a chance to surrender. The first intent of any agency is not to shoot down a boat especially when we know that we have control over it. There were over four attempts that were made to intercept them and ensure that they surrender. However they decided to blow themselves up instead which itself is an indication that they were trying to hide something.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 12:59:24 +0000
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