Malik claims that he interpreted the intercepted calls by RAW of a conversation between Musharraf (on a visit in China) and Lt Gen Aziz Khan in Rawalpindi. The truth is this was intercepted and interpreted by RAW before being sent to Malik and the PMO. But what irked the intelligence community most is Malik’s charge that there was no advance warning and, if any, these were all about "jehadi intrusions". The fact is that in October ’98, RAW got instructions from the PMO to "go slow" on intelligence operations in the light of Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s Lahore bus yatra. The Aviation Research Centre, RAW’s technical wing, had meanwhile conducted several flights on its Gulfstream aircraft for real-time intelligence on the Pakistani positions.
In all this, Malik has never questioned the role of then Northern Army commander Lt Gen Hari Mohan Khanna and his staff before and during the war. Instead, Khanna gets just one brief mention as Malik justifies his acts of commission and omission.
