THE mobile phone of Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was stolen from his checked-in baggage at the Delhi Airport last week, after he arrived here from London. Rahul noticed that his handset was missing from his bag after he returned home from the airport and informed the officials of the Special Protection Group, which guards him. The SPG then contacted the CISF, which in turn started a quiet investigation and reviewed the close-circuit TV footage, according to Indian media reports. The technical surveillance carried out by the CISF helped them detect the lost mobile phone. The CISF personnel identified two baggage handlers as suspects and questioned them. One of them accepted that he had stolen the phone from the baggage. According to Indian media reports, the instrument contained personal and official numbers and other sensitive information related to Gandhi.The Daily Mail finds it ironic that Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s cell phone was filched from an airport which has been named after his own grandmother, the matriarch of the Nehru Dynasty, the iron lady Indira Gandhi, the daughter of one of India’s founding fathers Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru. If Mr. Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the ruling class, a virtual prince of Wales and dubbed as India’s future Prime Minister can fall prey to such a severe security lapse, then what about ordinary travelers. In fact this case has come to light because there was a VIP involved otherwise numerous such cases occur regularly at Indian airports, but go unreported since they involve lesser plebeians. According to Indian media, this is not the first time that baggage handlers at airports have been accused of opening bags and helping themselves to gadgets. But the latest incident has brought under the glare the usual whipping boy when things go wrong: outsourcing. Airlines normally outsource baggage-handling to other companies. A security angle has also been added as regulations demand that at least one SPG officer should be around to supervise when such bags are taken from the aircraft to the terminal. The theft is thought to have taken place during this leg. “If someone can open the bag and steal something, then something can be put into the bag also,” said a source in a security agency.
The Daily Mail notes with concern that India continues to blackball Pakistan for alleged security lapses but the Rahul Gandhi theft case sheds light on a security lapse of extremely grave nature. Apparently this is how Indian spy agency RAW steals cell phones from unsuspecting passengers and uses them in terror attacks, loads Pakistani cell phone numbers and alleges that the perpetrators of the crime were Pakistanis. One of the main evidence being manufactured by Indian Security agencies is the alleged phone conversations, which the terrorists, “conveniently” dumped at the scene of the crime. The Mumbai Attack terrorists, the Delhi Parliament Building attackers, all supposedly had cell phones with Pakistani links. It now comes to light how Indian security agencies are stage managing the so called terror attacks and literally manufacturing evidence, to throw the international security agencies off the track and zeroing in on their favourite target, Pakistan.The Daily Mail recommends that India should tighten up its own security procedures and stop playing such amateurish tricks like blaming Pakistan for all their ills. It is time India came out of the Pakistan-bashing syndrome and grew up to accept Pakistan as a force to reckon with and instead of competing with it in every field and feeling jealous for what Pakistan achieves and acquires, and ruining its own economy in the “keeping up with the Joneses” disorder and behavior pattern, pay attention to the woes of its own people to make South Asia a better place rather than a hotbed of intrigues.
