It might be bone-chilling to think that terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba may have conducted a more thorough post-mortem of the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai in 2008 than Indian intelligence and security agencies , but that’s precisely the case, revealed British journalist Adrian Levy at the Carnival on Friday. Levy, who has co-authored The Siege: 68 hours inside the Taj Hotel that was launched at the Carnival, revealed how the investigative work that went into the book had shown them Lashkar was an incredibly disciplined organization with a thorough “lessons learnt facility”.

This was in sharp contrast to India’s investigation of the attacks , said he and his co-author Cathy Scott-Clark (who, like him, is a journalist), pointing out that there remains no agreed chronology of the incident till date. “No one has matched meta data from different sources and if you compare US congressional documents with the police log, you would realize the timeline itself is controversial ,” said Levy.

Cathy Scott-Clark believes it is still not too late for authorities to set up an inquiry commission on the lines of what the US did after 9/11 or UK did after 7/7, and not rely merely on the 64-page Ram Pradhan report.

“Many security officials would be willing to speak up about the lapses if they were given indemnity ,” said Levy. Scott-Clark recounted how security officials in London had deposed in-camera to enquiry commissions and their inputs were recorded in anonymity with a view to plug gaps and brace against similar attacks in the future . “A truth and reconciliation commission would also give survivors a right to air their views,” she pointed out, rueing that in the absence of such foolproofing, “Mumbai will have to save itself again” if such a misfortune were to fall upon the city in the future.

The authors, who said the entire 26/11 operation cost the Lashkar $40,000, were scathing about the US’ handling of David Headley, believed to have been a double agent. “If this was a crime in America, Headley would not have got off without a death penalty,” Levy told an enraptured audience.

