MY TAKE ON WHY KANCHAN GUPTA WAS TARGETED

B.RAMAN

I have known Shri Kanchan Gupta since 2000. I was a member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) from 2000 to end-2002. He was working in the PMO under Shri Brajesh Mishra, the then Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee and National Security Adviser. Kanchan used to attend meetings of the NSAB on behalf of  Shri Mishra.

2. Kanchan then went on a posting to the Indian Embassy in Cairo and we lost touch with each other. After his return from Cairo on the completion of his posting, I ran into him in 2008 -, before the 2009 elections, at a policy brain-storming organised by Shri Dayananda Sarawathi at a tourist resort near Ahmedabad. Among those who attended were Shri Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Mohan Bhagwat, the present chief of the RSS, Shri Ram Madhav of the RSS, Shri Arun Shourie, Shri Kanchan Gupta, Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman, the present spokesperson of the BJP, Shri Ajit Doval, former Director, Intelligence Bureau, Shri Prakash Singh, former Director-General of the Border Security Force, and many other retired public servants. Shri L.K.Advani was to attend, but did not.

3. I was invited to make a presentation on Pakistan, which I did. One of the sessions was devoted to a discussion on what should be the media strategy of the BJP. There was a feeling amongst some of the participants that the mainstream media was not giving sufficient opportunity to the BJP and other right-wing forces to air their views on matters of national interest and even if they did on some occasions, there was a distortion of their views. It was suggested by some participants that the BJP could get over this handicap by making good use of the online media.

4. I notice that the BJP, the supporters of Shri Modi and other right-wing elements have since been trying to do so with the help of IT-savvy  supporters of the Hindutva ideology in India and the US. In fact, it has been my impression that the Hindutva elements have had a head-start over the Congress in the use of the online media, including the social media networks, for the dissemination of their ideology and points of view.

5. After the meeting in 2008, I have not met Kanchan again, but we have been in touch with each other off and on through E-Mail and Tweets. We hold each other in great esteem despite differences in the way we view and analyse developments of national interests I have always thought of Kanchan as patriotic and upright. I consider him an individual of high intellectual integrity.

6.Kanchan recently resigned from “The Pioneer” in which he was holding  a senior position and took charge of a new online news journal. Sometime later, I received an E-mail from a journalist working for a New Delhi-based journal which had played an active role in the witch-hunt and inquisition of Barkha Dutt of NDTV towards 2010-end. He said in his mail that he was planning a story on the BJP’s Net-based media strategy and wanted to have a discussion with me  on this. His request was  triggered by some comments tweeted by me some months ago on the 2008 brain-storming. Subsequently, I had also tweeted drawing attention to a report carried by Rediff on the likely net-based media budgets of the BJP and Shri Modi. I did not reply to him.

7.When I went online early on the morning of August 23,2012, I noticed some Tweets alleging that Kanchan’s Twitter line had been blocked on the orders of the Government. But, I was able to access it. However, his TL remained frozen at midnight of August 22. I tweeted to Kanchan to find out the facts. Some of my followers, who had seen this Tweet, replied that while some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) seemed to have blocked his Twitter Line, some others have not.

8. In reply to my Tweet, I received a Tweet from Kanchan by DM. I was surprised he did not reply in the normal manner , but instead chose a DM.

9.Subsequently, I saw in the media the photocopies of the four Memos issued by the Government to Internet Service Providers directing them to block certain web sites and Twitter lines. I noticed three odd features in these communications:

( a ).None of them was typed on an official letterhead.

( b ).None of them carried the stamp of the issuing Department.

( c ).While two of them spelt out at the bottom Tele/Fax and gave the numbers, two others carried pictures of a telephone and a Fax machine and gave the numbers against them.

10. I just wanted to draw the attention of my readers to these odd features. This should not be interpreted to mean I doubt the authenticity of these communications. I would like to underline that the Government itself has not denied their authenticity.

11.While three of the communications directed the blocking of the sites/lines of Islamic organisations, either in India or Pakistan, the fourth included the Twitter lines of some Hindus/Hindu entities too and asked for them to be blocked. My assessment from this is that after having initially targeted some Islamic sites/lines, the Government wanted to convey an impression to the Muslim community that it was being objective by bringing some Hindus/Hindu entities too in the lists.

12. It needs to be noted that while the Islamic sites carry on vicious, provocative propaganda, the Hindus and Hindu entities targeted by the Government do not do so. They merely counter the pernicious propaganda of the Islamic fundamentalists. The Government has sought to silence them too by targeting them.

13. In my view, Kanchan was one of those thus targeted by the Government for the following reasons:

( a ).Amongst the pro-Hindutva journalists, he is the most active online.

( b ).He is seen by the Government as spearheading the Net-based media strategy of the Hindutva and other right-wing elements.

( c ). His new online venture is seen by the Government as having been started with an eye on the 2014 elections.

14. As an online Editor, Kanchan’s dependence on social media networks for communicating with his followers, readers and contributors would be heavy. The Government wanted to needle him and create difficulties for him in developing his new online venture.

15. But the uproar over the blocking of sites/lines of journalists, particularly Kanchan, has forced the Government on the defensive and it has refrained from any follow-up action against Kanchan.

16. It is obvious to me that the attempted blocking of Kanchan indicated the Government’s keenness to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the recent panic due to the online dissemination of exaggerated reports and rumours to create difficulties in the implementation of the Net-based media strategy of the BJP and other right-wing elements. It has misfired at least for the time being. (24-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

CYBER COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE: NEED FOR FINESSE

B.RAMAN

Intelligence is the collection of information from the real world that could be important for our national security.

2.Counter-intelligence is the technique of preventing our ill-wishers from collecting intelligence about us that could weaken our national security.

3. Cyber-intelligence is the collection of intelligence having a bearing on our national security by systematically monitoring the web.

4.Cyber counter-intelligence is the prevention, detection and neutralisation of attempts by our ill-wishers to weaken our national security by misusing the web for destabilising us. It is also the prevention, detection and neutralisation of attempts by our ill-wishers to penetrate our cyber security architecture for the collection of  information about us and for using this capability for disrupting our economy and the fighting capabilities of our armed forces.

5.The Task Force For the Revamping of the Intelligence Apparatus headed by Gary Saxena, former head of the R&AW, which was set up by the Government of A.B.Vajpayee in 2000, had, inter alia, gone into our cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities and made a set of recommendations.

6.It had suggested that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) should be given the additional responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence. It had also recommended that the IB should be made responsible for all counter-intelligence----whether in the real or virtual world--- and that its capabilities in this regard should be further strengthened,

7.One was given to understand that the NDA Government accepted these recommendations, but gave these new responsibilities for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence to the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which was set up as a Techint agency on the pattern of the National Security Agency (NSA) of the US.

8. In the US, the NSA used to have additional responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence. Two years ago, it was decided to set up an independent Cyber Command for this purpose, but to place it under the head of the NSA. The NSA and the Cyber Command are separate organisations with separate staff and separate budgets, but they have a common chief.

9. As a result of the NDA Government’s decision to entrust the responsibility for cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence to the NTRO, we now have the IB dealing with intelligence and counter-intelligence in the real world and the NTRO in the virtual world of the Internet and the social media sites that have come up in recent years.

10. The recent incidents relating to Psyjihad sought to be waged against us through the Net and its social media sites and mobile telephones by exploiting Muslim anger over the anti-Muslim violence in the Rakhine State of Myanmar and in our Assam State and our incoherent and ill-coordinated reaction to it bring out two serious deficiencies:

( a).The NTRO has not been systematically monitoring the Net and its Social Media Sites for cyber chatter that could have a bearing on our internal and external security in order to sound a wake-up call to the Govt when the contents of the cyber chatter indicate possible attempts at destabilisation. This is clearly evident from the fact that the large number of websites disseminating exaggerated accounts of the anti-Muslim violence with the help of morphed images seems to have been noticed by the NTRO only after the violent incidents in the Azad Maidan of Mumbai on August 11 and the panic departure  from South India and Pune of many people from the North-East working and living there. Had these web sites and their false and provocative propaganda been noticed in time, the Government might have been able to take pre-emptive action to prevent the violence and contain the panic.

( b ).The NTRO has not yet developed a capability for the identification of suspects who have been misusing the Net and its social media sites for their Psyjihad meant to destabilise us. As a result, one could see over-reaction and an attempt at a disproportionate use of the powers under the existing laws for cyber surveillance. After the surveillance failed initially due to lack of alertness  on the part of our agencies, there has been a disproportionate use of the surveillance powers by way of large-scale blocking of web sites and attempted control over social media sites without applying our mind. Instead of targeting our counter-action on the suspects responsible for the Psyjihad, we have been targeting the instruments used by them for their Psyjihad such as Facebook and Twitter. These instruments have benign and malign uses. Our actions should have been targeted against malign uses, but there is an impression that we have been trying to discourage both benign and malign uses in order to deter the use of these sites and instruments  even for well-intentioned criticism of the Government and its policies. The misuse by ill-wishers of the country has been sought to be  exploited for preventing legitimate uses of the social media networks even by well-wishers of the country.

11. There is a need for a mid-course correction in the follow-up actions initiated after the recent panic in order to introduce an element of finesse in our cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence architecture and techniques. Target the ill-wishers of the country who have been misusing the Net and the social media sites for nefarious purposes, but don’t target the well-wishers. Make the ill-wishers dysfunctional and not the Net and the social media sites.

12. The Naresh Chandra Task Force on national security has in its report submitted to the Prime Minister on May 24 devoted a chapter to cyber security. Its chapter on intelligence revamp also contains some important recommendations on this subject. While vetting them, the lessons drawn from our recent experience in handling our existing  cyber intelligence and counter-intelligence architecture and techniques should also be taken into consideration in order to see whether any modifications in the recommendations during implementation are called for. (23-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

THE JINX AGAINST WOMEN SECRET AGENTS IN R&AW

B.RAMAN

Till 1972, under the long-time Director of the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) J. Edgar Hoover, only men could be FBI agents. After his death in May 1972, partly under the pressure of the equal rights laws, the FBI started recruiting women as Agents. The first two women agents of the FBI joined the FBI in July 1972 and underwent training in the FBI Academy along with men recruits. They and many other women who followed their example have since distinguished themselves as Agents of whom the FBI and the US can be proud .

2. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Second World War precursor of the Central Intelligence agency (CIA),  had a few legendary women operatives. Well-known amongst them was Virginia Hall, who served behind Nazi lines in France.

3. Despite this, the CIA, which came into existence in 1947, inherited some of the prejudices of the FBI against women as secret Agents. There were many women who were recruited as administrative staff and analysts, but hardly any to serve as secret Agents in the top secret operations division.

4. As Valerie Wilson, a former CIA woman operative wrote: “CIA’s premier spy cadre was carefully recruited from the male, moneyed, white, establishment crowd that went to the Ivies. For the first four decades of the CIA’s existence, the very few females that got into operations were usually drawn from the secretarial or support staffs. These smart, persistent, and gutsy women tired of seeing the men have all the fun and back-doored themselves into case-officer jobs—meeting and recruiting assets, planning ops, and in some rare cases in the 1970s, managing operations overseas. These women were tough as nails—they had to be—and they poured everything into their careers, often at the expense of their personal lives. I met some of these women during my time at the CIA and they could intimidate me like nobody else. My female colleagues and I owe them a deep debt of gratitude for their groundbreaking careers.”

5. Despite the success of these women who managed to gravitate into the Operations Division from the Administrative or analysis divisions, the number of direct women recruits to the Operations Division remained low till Ronald Reagan became the President. During his presidency, under the pressure of the operational requirements for the covert war against the USSR in Afghanistan, the recruitment of women operatives to the CIA increased.

6. To quote Valerie Wilson again: “Under Director Bill Casey, the CIA loosened its recruitment policies, involving schools other than the Ivies. Additionally, they began hiring women specifically to go into operations. Of course, attitudes take a long time to change and many a dinosaur who thought women should really just be at home and not running clandestine agents still roamed the halls at headquarters.”

7. In 1991, 400 women employees of the CIA working in various divisions filed a class action suit alleging discrimination against women in the agency under various pretexts. An enquiry declared their complaints legitimate. Since then,  there has been an improvement in the position of women Agents who have been doing as well as their male counterparts. It took nearly 40 years for the CIA to admit that women Agents could be as daring, as capable and as successful as male Agents. The death in December 2009 of Elizabeth Hanson, an officer of the analysis division posted as the station chief in Kabul, along with seven of her colleagues in a suicide attack by Al Qaeda at Khost brought the much-deserved recognition for the women operatives of the CIA and their bravery.

8. In September 2010, women crossed another landmark in the history of the US intelligence community when Letitia A. Long became the first woman director of a major U.S. intelligence agency  taking over as the chief of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a Techint agency.

9. Reports published in sections of the US media at that time indicated that women represented  38 per cent of the total intelligence work force. In six of the most prominent agencies, 27 per cent of senior intelligence positions were held by women.

10. While women in the US had to wait till 2010 to be accepted as capable of heading an intelligence agency, in the UK, Dame Stella Rimington became the head of the Security Service known as the MI-5 in 1992 and continued in that post till 1996.The MI-5 had the distinction of being headed by another woman chief Dame Eliza Manningham Buller from 2002 to 2007, during the Iraq war in 2003 and the London Metro attacks by some jihadi suicide terrorists in 2005.The MI-5 and the MI-6, the external intelligence agency known as the Secret Intelligence Service, had a longer tradition of accepting women as analysts and operatives on par with men than their US counterparts.

11.Till 1972, the Indian intelligence community had some women serving in administrative posts such as stenographers and ministerial assistants, but no officers serving as either analysts or operatives. The R&AW under R.N.Kao was the first in the Indian intelligence community to induct women as officers to perform analysis as well as operational duties in the headquarters as well as in the field. The first women inductees into the R&AW were taken on deputation from other Government services. Thereafter, three women fresh from the universities were directly recruited into the Research and Analysis Service (R&AS). This was followed by the induction of two women officers of the IPS and one economic expert on deputation. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) emulated the example set up by Kao and started taking women IPS officers on deputation.

12.Unfortunately, while the women intelligence agents of the US and the UK have been doing as well as, if not better than, their male counterparts, this cannot be said of the women operatives of the R&AW. Two of the deputationists of the 1970s created problems because of their alleged inability to maintain a low profile and their alleged habits of dropping names and throwing their weight around.

13. Of the three direct recruits, two got involved in embarrassing controversies due to personal reasons or professional inadequacies. The economic expert and the two IPS deputationists did well, but one of them went back to the State. Of the eight officers taken into the organisation since 1972, four were found to be professionally unsatisfactory.

14.Whereas  in the intelligence agencies of the US and the UK, women analysts and operatives have been doing extremely well, it is perceived to be not so in the case of the R&AW. What is it due to? Careless selection? Inadequate training? Unfair discrimination and prejudices that come in the way of their giving off their best? One does not know the answers to these questions. While women officers  have been doing extremely well in other services and departments of the Government of India, it is said to be not so in the R&AW.

15.It is important to go into this in a professional manner to improve the intake of women officers into the R&AW and their performance. ( 22-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

MY TAKE ON POLICE HANDLING OF A RAMPAGING MUSLIM MOB IN MUMBAI

B.RAMAN

The way Arup Patnaik, the Commissioner of Police of Mumbai, handled a Muslim mob that went on a rampage at the Azad Maidan in Mumbai on August 11,2012, has come in for mixed comments. The mob had been demonstrating against the recent anti-Muslim violence in the Rakhine State of Myanmar and India’s Assam State.

2. Some, including me, have praised Patnaik for bringing the situation quickly under control and for preventing its degenerating into widespread communal riots. Others, including some pro-Hindutva organisations, have criticised him for not dealing with the mob more forcefully and for not preventing it from widespread vandalising, including at a monument erected in homage to the Unknown Indian Soldier.

3. I found it difficult to believe Patnaik when he told Barkha Dutt of NDTV in her The Buck Stops Here Show on the night of August 21 that there  were no political instructions  and that riot control in general is rarely influenced by directions from the political leadership.

4.In the few years that I had spent as an IPS officer in Madhya Pradesh between 1962 and 1967, I had handled many instances of violent agitation by industrial workers at Kymore and Bhilai and violent anti-Muslim agitations by Hindu refugees from Pakistan at Katni. Those were the days when the Congress was in power at New Delhi and in Madhya Pradesh.

5.There used to be a continuous flow of directions from the Congress leadership as to how to handle the situation. These directions did not come directly to the field police officers, but through the Chief Secretary and the Inspector-General of Police. If the instructions came directly from the political leadership, one could have said ‘no” to any of them considered incorrect, but when they came as orders of the Chief Secretary and the IGP one had to comply with them in the interest of discipline.

6.Things have much worsened since then and there is much greater interference in police working by the political leadership now than there was when I was a police officer in the field. The assertions of Patnaik that there  were no political directions do not, therefore, carry conviction.

7. After having stated that, I do feel that Patnaik deserves credit for bringing the situation quickly under control and for preventing over-reaction by his force in the face of the rampaging Muslim mobs. Not infrequently, situations get out of control not because of the violent mobs, but because of  over-reaction by the police in dealing with the mobs and disproportionate use of force by the police.

8. When Patnaik reached the spot after the mobs had gone on rampage, his first reflex was to ensure that his force did not add to the heat of the riots by losing its cool and over-reacting. If Patnaik had not kept its force under control, there might have been many more fatalities resulting in a serious aggravation of the situation. In literally forcing the policemen to keep their cool and not to overact, Patnaik had acted according to his professional instincts, the training that he had received as a young officer and his long years of experience in dealing with such situations. Let us give him the credit for the way he exercised his leadership during those critical moments when the riots could have spread to many parts of Mumbai.

9. Generally political directions come before a riot and thereafter and not during a riot. I am prepared to believe that his permitting the Muslims to hold a protest meeting must have been on the directions of the political leadership or in consultation with it. I won’t be surprised if instructions continue to come from the political leadership as to what legal action he should take against the Muslims who indulged in acts of violence and vandalising.

10. It is to be expected that, keeping in view the 2014 elections, the political leadership will try to prevent the law from taking its course against the Muslim rioters. There will be political pressure on Patnaik to let bygones be bygones and not to pursue the cases against the rioters vigorously. From the way Patnaik denied, in response to questions from Barkha, that there were many instances of the molesting of women members of the Police by the mob I got the impression that he is already under pressure not to be too severe in his follow-up legal action.

11.If he resists the pressure, he may be transferred out. If he succumbs, he might lose some of the credit that he earned from many of us for the way he handled the riots. The real mettle of a police officer comes out not only during a riot, but equally thereafter in taking legal action disregarding political pressure against those who rioted.

12. We saw the best of Patnaik from the way he handled a volatile situation. Will we see the best of him again from the way he pursues the cases against the rioters? One has to keep one’s fingers crossed. ( 22-8-12)

(The  writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com  Twitter @SORBONNE75)

POST-ASSAM INCIDENTS: OVERT & COVERT

B.RAMAN, Camp New Delhi

The post-Assam  incidents in the rest of India had overt and covert dimensions.

2. The overt dimension related to the protests by groups of Muslims against the anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar and Assam which were seen in the Azad Maidan of Mumbai on August 5,2012, and in Lucknow on August 17,2012.These protests  were triggered off by exaggerated accounts of the anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar and Assam. These exaggerated accounts were disseminated with the help of morphed images through web sites of Islamic fundamentalist organisations, some of them located in Pakistan. The fact that these organisations in Pakistan such as the Jamaat-e-Islami had them uploaded in their web sites does not necessarily mean they had produced them.

3.Some of the visuals uploaded in many web sites of different organisations had inter alia, morphed images of two incidents---- the large number of dead bodies recovered after an earth quake in the Sichuan province of China  some years ago and public protests by the opponents of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Bangkok in 2009.The appearance of  similar or same morphed images in several web sites across the region indicated a common source  of the production of these visuals. This common source has not so far been identified. All we have is the total number of web sites in Pakistan that had uploaded these visuals. These visuals definitely played a part in inflaming passions in Mumbai and Lucknow.

4.It was reported in sections of foreign media last week that President Thein Sein of Myanmar has brought these morphed images of unconnected incidents that had taken place outside Myanmar to the notice of the OIC delegation that was in Myanmar. He reportedly told the OIC delegation that a false impression of a genocide of the Rohingya Muslims of the Rakhine State of Myanmar was sought to be created  through the circulation and uploading of such images. We must get from Myanmar details of all the evidence that they have been able to collect in this regard.

5.Now, after the damage has been caused in Mumbai and Lucknow, we seem to have woken up and taken action for the blocking of the web sites in Pakistan which had uploaded these provocative visuals. Was it not possible to notice them before and do it? Since the Muslim-Buddhist violence broke out in the Rakhine State in May last, I have been closely monitoring it and had written a number of articles on it. In an article on August 9 before the recent incidents, I had also drawn attention to the dangers of the emergence of what I called a new epicenter of Muslim anger in the Myanmar-Bangladesh-Indian region due to the recent incidents in  the Rakhine State and Assam and reported feelings among the Muslim victims of these incidents that there was discrimination against them in the matter of distribution of humanitarian relief.  In this connection, please refer to my article dated August 9,2012, titled “Don’t Fuel The Fire” carried by Outlook Online at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281942 .Nobody seems to have paid attention to these developments and taken anticipatory action. However, these were controllable developments and our Police, after having been taken by surprise, was able to control the situation creditably.

6. The covert dimension related to the circulation of one or more SMS messages among residents from the North-East living in the South that they would be the targets of violence after the Ramadan fasting period concluded on August 20. There is so far no evidence to show that these SMS messages were incited or inspired or orchestrated from Pakistan. These appear to have been locally incited or inspired or orchestrated by unidentified elements in India.

7.While details are still lacking, certain unexplainable factors need to be highlighted:

( a ). The messages were disseminated more in the South and Pune than in the North, thereby creating more panic in the South and Pune than in the North.

(b).These messages appear to have been received only by people from the North-East living in the South and Pune and not by locals. If bulk messages had been used, this would not have been possible.

( c ). The person or persons who circulated these messages knew the identities of some people from the North-East and their telephone numbers.

(d). There were no references in the SMS messages to Assam or Myanmar. The connections appear to have been made by the people who received these messages in their mind, but these were not there in the messages.

( e ). The fact of the threat contained in these messages rapidly spread like prairie fire among the people from the North-East in the South and Pune and their relatives back home in Assam. This led to mental pressure on some of thm to go back to their homes.Some of the pressure was self-generated and some by their relatives in Assam.

8. It would be unfair to blame the police for being taken by surprise. They could not have known about the impending panic. What we saw in the South and Pune was the herd reflex. Once one member fled, many fled with him  or her without applying own mind. One cannot blame the people from the North-East either. That is the way you and I might have behaved when overtaken by fears which one does not know  whether true or not. One was reminded of the famous incident in Chennai during the second World War when a rumour that a Japanese submarine had been spotted led to the exodus of large sections of the city residents to their villages.

9. According to the media briefing given by the Home Secretary of the Government of India on August 18, the Karnataka police have identified seven suspects of whom three have been taken into custody for interrogation and one more has been identified by the central agencies independently. Better to await authentic details of their background and interrogation. ( 19-8-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India )