City cops are lost in translation

Mateen Hafeez I TNN

Mumbai: The man brought by the city crime branch to translate two Arabic words on a note left behind by 26/11 terrorists on a bomb near the hotel Taj, told the special court on Thursday that he was not a professional translator. This goof-up has once again brought to the fore the paucity of trained translators in the state’s intelligence gathering mechanisms.

Observers say that the scale of the problem can be gauged by the fact that police were unable to find a professional Urdu or Arabic translator even for evidence pertaining to a case as big as the 26/11 terror attacks.

City police’s special branch, which is responsible for gathering intelligence on an array of issues pertaining to the city, has only a handful of officers who translate Marathi into English. The agency has just one officer who is fluent in Urdu. The special branch does not have translators for Arabic, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Oriya, etc. The state antiterrorism squad (ATS) too does not have any Arabic, Gujarati, Bengali, or Tamil translator.

Bhiwandi-based LIC agent, Mukhtar Peerzade, the translator brought by the city crime branch, told the court that he translated the two words, “Ammar Askari’’, with the help of a dictionary and a friend. However, there were doubts about his expertise. The words were written on a chit which was found on a 8kg RDX bomb outside hotel Taj. The officer, who seized the bomb, found this chit and got it translated as “threat of war.’’ The crime branch maintains that Peerzade’s first statement was taken by the Colaba police station and that they did not have any information on him.

It is worth noting that India is the world’s second largest Urdu-speaking nation. Considering that Maharashtra alone has over 4,000 madrassas, the police could have easily asked an Arabic teacher to translate the two words, say observers. The crime branch officers, however, insisted that this was not a big issue and that “whenever we need to get something translated, we get it done from somewhere.’’

The state intelligence department (SID), which is responsible for collecting information across the state (excluding Mumbai), was also not asked for help. “According to the rules, each SID officer has to learn a foreign/national language, besides knowing English, Hindi and Marathi. Many SID officers are learning other languages and could have been approached for the translation,” said an officer. However, no SID officer was called to translate the two words.

Language Lacunae l Special branch: Has no translators for Arabic, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Oriya l The state anti-terrorism squad (ATS): No translators for Arabic, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil Lessons To Be Learnt l The US: Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, the New York police set-up a dedicated wing to train its officers in foreign languages. Today, the department has over two dozen such officers

The Times of India, September 12, 2009