NEW DELHI: A new book on the Mumbai terror attacks has claimed that an Indian intelligence mole helped the Pakistani attackers carry out the November 2008 assault and Indian home ministry officials said on Friday they were not inclined to believe the sensational charge without a probe.

In their book on the terror attacks on Mumbai, ‘The Siege: The Attack On The Taj’, authors Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark have claimed that an Indian citizen was a mole for the Inter Services Intelligence and passed on information to it that helped mount the audacious terror attacks on Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Pakistan has denied the charge of any official complicity in the assault.

Mr Levy has been quoted by rediff.com as saying the Indian government had not tried hard enough to find the ISI mole in the New Delhi establishment.

According to the authors, David Coleman Headley, an American of Pakistani origin who was convicted in the United States for his role, was given “a condensed version of the Pakistani army’s two-year training course on surveillance and counter-intelligence”.

Mr Levy told rediff.com he believes that while the ISI’s source in India is unlikely to be from the army, it could be someone from the Indian security establishment other than the army.

In addition to the mole, the book also claims there were people in Mumbai codenamed ‘chuhas’ (mice) who supplemented information and added to the details Headley allegedly provided to the Lashkar-e-Taiba to plan the terror attacks.

“The LeT claims there were 10 collaborators working in Mumbai,” says Levy.

The Ram Pradhan Commission of Inquiry, set up to probe the terror attacks, failed in its duty when it did not examine the ‘local element’, Mr Levy added.

“The Pakistan side told me there exist Honey Bee and chuhas. The Indian side should have established their identity.”