Guwahati: Assam government has decided to set up a special intelligence branch as a separate autonomous organisation for effective intelligence gathering and a Research and Analysis Centre to add teeth to its counter-terror apparatus.
It was decided in a meeting of the State Security Commission headed by chief
minister Tarun Gogoi at his official residence here, a source in the CM office informed. The proposed research and analysis centre will have multi-disciplinary experts for analysing the socio-economic and cultural
developments by collating information from all possible sources.
The government also plans to separate law and order wing of Assam police
from investigation wing to impart efficiency to the force in the view of growing threat from fundamentalist elements trying to strike root in the soft ground in the state.
As on date the special branch under Assam Police is operating as the intelligence wing for the state police and it is now headed by an officer in the rank of Additional Director General of Police.
Nine jihadi elements have been arrested in Assam during the last few days in connection with October 2 Burdwan blast in West Bengal that left two
Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) bomb makers dead.
Earlier, in a statement Assam government said, “The Government is aware of certain external and internal forces that include insurgent groups, joining hands together and trying to set up a strong base in the State (Assam ) and the whole of the North East region with the sinister design of destabilising the country. Certain jihadi forces are at work trying to wean away some youths to join its rank.”
In reaction to criticism by the All Assam Students’ Union of Tarun Gogoi-led government for ‘not doing enough’ to stop infiltration across the border with Bangladesh, the statement said “It is the State Government of Assam that has initiated a host of measures during the tenure of the previous UPA
Government at the Centre for strengthening the borders, erecting doubled barbed wire fencing, creation of more border outposts BoPs, intensifying riverine patrolling, flood lighting and raising the number of foreigners’ tribunals to check infiltration from across the borders.
It has been pressing all along the NDA Government at the Centre to take effective steps to seal the Indo-Bangla border to stop infiltration.
The State Government is for complete sealing of the international border to stop infiltration and
it is up to the Centre to take effective steps.”
