New intelligence wing to prevent terror attacks

A 1,200-strong intelligence wing of the Central Reserve Police Force, which has been tasked with all internal security duties in the country, will become operational this month.

"With our increased responsibility to deal with militants across India, we felt the need for our own intelligence wing. We worked on it and decided to set it up with our existing resources," CRPF Director General J K Sinha told PTI on the sidelines of a function in Latur.

The independent intelligence wing, headed by an officer of the rank of inspector general of police and with its headquarters in New Delhi, is expected to be fully operational within the end of September, officials said.

The CRPF had sent a proposal for raising the intelligence wing sometime back to the Centre, which told the central police organisation to create it with its own resources and personnel.

"We have been sharing information with state and central security agencies for long. This process will be strengthened now," Sinha said.

Sources said the personnel for the intelligence wing are being picked from different battalions and wings of the CRPF.

The headquarters will have a staff of 30. A deputy inspector general of police will head the intelligence set-up in each of the 14 sectors of the CRPF, they said.

In the different sectors, intelligence will be shared with state governments. At the headquarters, all intelligence inputs will be shared with the Intelligence Bureau and other central agencies, the sources said.

The main task of the wing will be to gather information at the ground level and send reports to the headquarters, which will analyse the information so that action can be taken.

Directives will then be sent to units for operations and other action, they said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while addressing a conference of chief ministers in New Delhi recently, had emphasised the need to improve intelligence gathering as well as the strengthening of the intelligence mechanism.

"I also recommend to you paying more attention to improving the software needed for the maintenance of peace. I mean by this, improving intelligence generation and collection, as also the overall strengthening of your intelligence mechanism," he told the chief ministers.

Union Minister of State for Home Sreeprakash Jaiswal had on Saturday said that intelligence has 'great significance' for the security networks.

"We have to further strengthen our intelligence. If we could do that, incidents like Malegaon could be prevented," he said.