Intelligence was passed on to Centre just before Kargil conflict: Dulat

Intelligence reports pointing to intrusion of Kargil heights were submitted to the Centre ahead of the Kargil conflict in year 1999, former RAW chief A S Dulat said at the Military Literature Festival here on Saturday.

Moderating a discussion on 'Wisdom of Spies', Dulat said the intelligence reports were shared with the Centre with all pointers gathered by the Army before the war started, a statement by the Punjab government said.

Dulat, who was with the Intelligence Bureau at the time of the Kargil conflict, said the vital information was shared with the then Union Home minister L K Advani, who was also holding the charge of the deputy prime minister.

Earlier, Lt Gen (retd.) Kamal Davar highlighted the importance of putting all the three defence wings physically under one unified command, ensuring convergence in decision making, the statement said.

Cautioning against the current trend of NSA being the 'intelligence czar' of the country, Davar said it was one thing to have information but totally another to act on all available inputs.

He also highlighted the need to invest more aggressively in acquiring language mastery in South Asian languages like Mandarin, Sinhalese and Pashto.

Lt General (retd.) Sanjeev K Longer, however, differed on the issue of collective unified command. He said in a country like India, we need different heads who come together to contribute towards a crucial decision.