The Mumbai carnage could not have been carried out without indirect support from 'professional organisations' in Pakistan, Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said in Mumbai on Thursday.
"Of course there is indirect support.....some professional organisations could be involved," he said when asked if the terrorists had received assistance from Pakistani state agencies.
"How do you learn to do what you are doing? How do you get the infrastructure you need for this kind of thing," the admiral asked.
"Those are all issues where some professional organisations could be involved," he said after commissioning the navy's first helicopter base, INS Shikra, in the city.
Even if the terrorists who participated in the attacks were non-state actors, as claimed by Pakistan, they were still the responsibility of that state, he said.
"Pakistanis have been saying...that there is no state agency that is involved. These are non-state actors who have got the job done. Whatever that be, the fact of the matter remains that non-state actors emanating from a state become the responsibility of the state," he said.
Mehta also said that there had been no additional deployment of forces by the Navy in the western sector following the terror strikes.
"The level of alertness is always high and our forces are always ready," he said, adding there were ships on duty on the western seafront of the country but no orders increasing the state of alert had been given.
Following the terror attacks, there were multiple organisational issues being discussed in order to improve co-ordination among the country's various security agencies, Mehta said.
Image: Admiral Sureesh Mehta (centre) after commissioning the navy's first helicopter base INS Shikra in Mumbai.
Photograph: Arun Patil
