How Yasin Bhatkal was cuaght

The ‘Ghost Who Bombs’ had given the slip to Intelligence units in so many Indian states that few believed he could be nabbed. There had been a few close brushes. In December 2009, Bhatkal, who was wanted for bombings in Delhi and Hyderabad, was picked by the Kolkata Police in connection with a theft case. But he managed to convince his captors that he was a local resident called Bulla Mallik, and walked out of the Shakespeare Sarani police station. His next bomb blast came soon after


But time was running out, so the SOG team asked the Nepal police to conduct the raid on that very day. They watched from a distance as the local police finally entered the house on the highway off Oregaon Chowk at 8.30 pm. At 10 pm, the SOG team got a call from the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. The IPS man on the line was furious. “You are picking up an innocent man,” he yelled, “The man you staked out is a turbine engineer.”
The operation was at threat of being jeopardised. One of the men in the team replied: “If you are an IPS man, you should smell a rat when a turbine engineer practices Unani medicine and calls himself a doctor. Isn’t this man’s name Dr Yusuf? Please ask the Nepali police to bring him out. We will identify him.”
A little calmer by now, the embassy official agreed to convey the request to the Nepali police. “Our men had a strong suspicion by now that the delay in nabbing Dr Yusuf was a deliberate ploy,” an Intelligence official familiar with the details of the Bhatkal operation maintains.

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NON PRODUCTION OF CCTV FOOTAGES IN THE COURT LEADS TO ACQUITTAL

In the times where installation of 15,000 CCTV cameras for the US President by the current ruling establishment for Republic Day is attracting both bouquets and brickbats, a 3 judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Dave and authored by Justice Banumathi with Justice Kurian Joseph as the third member had an occasion to deal with the importance of ‘CCTV footage’ as an important link in the chain of circumstantial evidences in criminal law.
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> > The case related to tourists from Italy who came to the Holy city of Varanasi (also the constituency of the current Prime Minister) and stayed in a Hotel Room. The deceased foreign national was found murdered and his 2 colleagues including one woman were convicted u/s 34 & 302 by the trial Court. In appeal, the High Court upheld the conviction. Setting aside the conviction, the Italian tourists’ appeal was allowed by the Supreme Court solely on the basis that the prosecution did not examine the ‘best evidence’ i.e. the CCTV Footage.
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> > Senior Counsel Mr. Raval appearing for the appellants strongly contended that non production of CCTV Footage as the best possible evidence casted serious doubts in the prosecution case. The court went in depth of the facts of the case and held that the principle underlying Sec 106 of the Evidence Act is that the burden to establish facts within one’s personal knowledge is on the person concerned and if he fails to do so, an adverse inference can be drawn against him. In para 22 of the judgment, Banumathi J drew the connection between Sec 106 and relevance & admissibility of the CCTV footage. Para 25 dealt with Sec 65B(1) and the inter connection between Information technology, scientific temper and use of advance technologies in the methods of Investigation. Para 28 & 29 then laid down the foundation for allowing the appeals dealing with Sec 114 g and the corresponding principle.
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> > The judgment is landmark as for the first time non use of advance technologies in investigations has resulted in acquittal at the highest level. The judgment goes in hand with the Principle laid down by Justice Kurian Joseph last year in Anwar Basheer’s case relating to admissibility of electronic evidence. Infact a combined reading of the two judgments urges the investigating agencies to use relevant and admissible methods of electronic evidences to build up a genuine prosecution case. This definitely will lay down a basis for acceptance of relevant electronic evidences as the ‘to be relied solely’ link in the criminal machinery.
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The Kaoboys of R&AW

1. poker face - first quality of intelligence operative
2. Robin Raphael created many problems for india - Narsimharao wanted opinion of Raman about her
3. a state resorts to covert action if it finds its national interests cant be protected via conventional means or they are not feasible
4. any intell agency worth its salt will have covert action capability ready for action when necessary
5. Pakistani terrorism against India started in 1956 in nagaland
6. he does not mention why R&AW was created in 1967 as IB was under HM control & Indira Gandhi wanted her own intelliegene apparatus
7. Al Badr , Al Shams - Paki supporter in bangladesh
8. Bihari migrants to bangladesh were biggest supporter of Pakistan - beware of bihari muslims
9. India pressurised Srilanka to not provide refuelling to Paki planes in 1971
10. Paki communication security was poor, they will use landline phones even without using scramblers
11. Charan Singh Panchi - khalistan movement 1971
12. Jagjit Chouhan - khalistani movement supported by CIA
13. naga hd direct route to china via kachin state, mizos had to go via bangladesh and hence petered out after 1971
14. Indian army was caught unprepared in 1962 beacuse Chinese came viaYUnan kachina state
15. IFS officer in rangoon apporved use of chinese aircraft by myanmaar for indo myanmaar border survey - R&AW did not even raise this with PM
16. There were KMT people in Myanmaar so chienese also infiltrated kachin and shan state
17. indian support to separate balochistan would have angered iran as well
18. misplaced generosity should have no place in our relations with Pakistan
19. Senior Bush gifted a cowboy statue to RN Kao
20. Naresh Chandra was close personal friend to RN Kao
21. He trusted men & women to a fault, little realising that some of those trusted by him were not worthy of it
22. restrictive security - intell people dont reduce to writing all their thoughts as more you write more chances of leak
23. kao established historical division which was wound up after kao left in 1984
24. indira gandhis negotiations with akali were recorded but have been lost
25. somra tract of cht was used by Nagas
26. burmese army had no effective presence in the burma naga hills - in return for payment by  outlaws burmese army used to close eyes
27. MC Chagla was very good foreign minister of indira for a short while
28. burma did not let indian army operate because then chinese would also pressure for same
29. chinese had one condition - no bilbe plus classes on communism
30. IB & R&AW gave wrong estimates of number of people who gave gone for training - maneckshaw conclusively demonstrated this
31. reprots indicating same group at diff places and diff dates was not taken care - analysis of reports is very poor
32. Laldenga was annoyed by attitude of charan singh to him
33. in vpsingh cabinet george fernandes was dealing kashmir issue not home minsiter
34. laldenga wanted a brigadier of R&AW as governor who rose to be no 2 in R&AW and then retired
35. 1971 pointed to two weakness- collection of maritime intelligence in indian ocean,lack of HUMINT & TECHINT about US & itc activities against india
36. US was hostile to india and also to indira gandhi
37. CIA spread news that KGB experts were used in operation blue star but truth was MI5 MI6 helped in that
38. officers of earlier era were cosmpolitan and had inter continental connections and exposure
39. French agreed to clandestine monnitoring station in mauritios and seycheels which indian mission head opposed
40. R&AW had many centres inside india..they were not meant to keep an eye on indians but look for possible sources among foreigners who visited india
41. R&AW was always alleged to have nepotism and favrotisim in recruitment
42. R&AW lost contacts in non AL bangladeshi circle
43. Kao advised indira not to shift her family to nepal after loss in election in 1977 when shah of nepal gave the offer
44. Sanakaran Nair had been selected by Indira to be IB chief but Sanjay refused
45. Nair was leading expert on pakistan and islamic states
46. decoders in R&AW HQ worngly read 3 as 1 dece of pak air force attack in 1971
47. Kao and Nair were perfect team of two
48. Nair paid commission to shah of iran for soft loans- confirmed from book of shankaran nair
49. Santook & Murkot Ramunny were good officers of Indian frontier admin service
50. Morarji sent cab secretary to Kaos office so that he could not destroy papers but charan singh told him sorry later
51. Suntook prevented witch hunt by morarji but none could prevent witch hunt by indira when she returned back to power
52. many members of R&AW settled in western nations once their term ended and never returned to india
53. Suntook wasgujrati parsi hence went along well with morarji
54. charan singh opposed trimming R&AW if it affects its operational capabiltiy
55. Vajpayee was mean to Kao ,apparently Kao told indira about his mistress
56. morarji used to bully officers but would respect those who stood ground
57. morarji kept on eating nuts and fruits whileothers were served 7 course dinner
58. very poor joke on mentioning amabssadorswife asks servant to use new glasses alluding to urine drinking habit of morarji
59. raman claims credit for telling morarji that shah will be toppled - but morarji knew that beforehand based on indian shia opinion- raman gives credit where its due
60. he praises that indian pm gets good information from otehr sources e.g.
61. ayotollah had positive words about india negative about pakistan - he says morarji became positive to R&AW afer this
62. K santanam detected paki nuclear programme
63. zia used to flatter morarji would ask him which urine should be taken fresh in morning or anytime
64. invetigative officers should not have strong likes or dislikes that would affect their ovjectivity and distort the investigation
65. IB officers played as per indira's fancies once she returned to power after 1980
66. suntook stood for shivbahadur..would seniors of today do so?
67. TN kauls relatives were employed by R&AW
68. Counter intelligence never applied stirict check on senior officers
69. many officers stayed ther or brought bad name to nation but kao did not act strongly against him
70. employees striked after 1980
71. suntook took deep interest in africa and developed good contacts there
72. there is limit to use of big stick by india against bangladesh due to presence of large number of hindus
73. soviet intervention in afghanistan was in response to cia incursion andeffort to destabilise its republics
74. usa made soviet troops heroin addict
75. ex us intelligence operatives who make money today world over claimming to be qaeda watcher were itsoriginal creator in 1980
76. sikha went to canada to work in saw mill to us to work in citrus farms
77. nehru had a hands off policy which pissed nris as opposed to israel which supported jews everywhere
78. those who took citizenship abroadwere denied indian citizenship
79. charan singhetc used to testify before us congressional committee ..all those who go now are traitors
80. ganga singh dhillon was very close to zia ul haq..family terms
81. Dr Chauhan did not advocate violence
82. in 1981 a JS from MEA got the background note prepared by Raman & presented it to PVN then foreign minister as his own
83. sep 29 1981 hijacking was first attributed to JKLF but Raman rightly predicted that it was sikhs
84. romesh bhandari had very good contacts in UAE & hijackers were led into indian place believing it to be US - pakistan replaced their toy revolver with actual
85. Indira gandhi also had high goodwill in UAE, Vajpayee neither had contacts nor goodwill so Kandhar hijack could not be terminated
86. Romesh got a khalsa activist arrested in phillipines informally and flown back to india in ARC plane
87. Pakistan wanted terrorists to attack bhakra dam and irrigation canals but they desisted
88. restiriction on sikhs during asian games increased feeling of humiliation
89. zail singh propped bhindarawale but it backfired
90. raman says it should have been a police action in golden temple & not army
91. army was confident that there will be no negative impact on its sikh soldiers this hope proved wrong
92. he once again accepts that reprots of IB & R&AW regarding presence of paki mercenaries inside golden temple during operation blue star were wrong
93. He is critical of general sunderji for both op blue star as well as IPKF fiasco
94. foreign travel of indira gandhi was junket for police officers to smuggle in foreign goods
95. a permissiveness had crept into VIP security, Kao did not act against officials who behave dishnorably by smuggling in goods
96. western nations did not help india agaisnt khalistanis till kanishka bombing, once a terrorist even after arrested by germany was released taking plea that cbi team was late
97. RK dhavan and ML fotedar used to attend R&AW meetings on indira gandhis physical security
98. US did not deploy blacks, UK catholics from N ireland but in india all such steps are unnecessarily given communal color
99. R&AW used to send ambassadors cars to europe for bullet proofing - mercedes had vrey good bullet proof cars which could be ordered
100. kao even got a bullet proof vest made for indira gandhi
101. raman says no rules of access control were being followed in indira gandhi household
102. two sikhs were not be together on duty but killers manipulated duty chart
103. many heads rolled after assasination of indira gandhi
104. sikh policemen succeeded and not terrorists as being police officers they knew importance of communcation security and avoided use of telephone
105. Kao was deeply hurt due to murder of indira gandhi who trusted him for her security
106. in 81-84 as intelligence coordinator kao was not efective due to IB non cooperation
107. some officers of IB who had worked under Kao cooperated but many others had prejudice of Hooja
108. even after retirement indira kept on using kao instead of then R&AW chief for sensitive assignments
109. Suntook trained intelligence operatives of many african countries
110. PVN raised issue of high standard of living of R&AW officials who had best cars
111. Gary was last of gentlemen progessional kao ,nair, suntook
112. he blames IPS for over cautiousness & navy for mental reservation for not agreeing to hire afishing trawler and use it to evasdrop in indian ocean
113. as south always supported her politically indira gandhi had a soft corner for south & tn in particular
114. congress had good contacts in pakistani political establishment as opposed to moraji, charan singh or vajpayee
115. william cassey actually copied hezbollah tactics in afghanistan
116. ammonium nitrate fuel oil - vehicular explosive
117. french intelligenc agency penetrated PMO around 1988 - it was shown in a movie also
118. a promoted IPS was in live in with an autralian woman
119. in 1987 a distinguished IPS of kerala was head of CIS and did very good role
120. RAS research and analysis service was constituted in 1981
121. some of the initial recruits were sons of senior army officers
122. firction in R&AW - ras vs no ras, ips vs rest, military vs civilian
123. In IB instances of dog eating dog are less
124. JIC bifuracted in 1981, unified in 1984, headed by non ipc 1999 onwards
125. brajesh mishra was both principal secretary to PM and NSA
126. Manmohan singh offered inteillegence officers to directly approach him when they felt need but people did not dare due to fear of MK narayanan
127. before operation blue star sikhs used only hand held weapons after wards IEDs
128. Dr S Subramaniam became head of SPG a no nonsense officer
129. Rajiv Gandhi wanted initial SPG officers to be trained by italian but they were not good and bad behaved so plan terminated
130. movies like mr india capture transistor radio bomb of 1980s
131. rajeev gandhi even used to attend meetings of inconsequential bodies like ILO
132. talks about a sikh officer he removed form security detail of rajeev in geneva and when he pointed this in farewell speech how bad raman felt
133. single source reports are not reliable
134. many people started fabricating reports
135. ASL teams had a bulky book very general in nature regarding threat and were ridiculed in pakistan , thailand & malaysia..for long this nonsense was allowed to go on
136. CP delhi once blasted at IB for naming almost all areas of delhi as potential terrorist strike spot
137. AN vermahisprinicipalsecretary to PVN pointed threat book for USA was exact copy of threat book for thailand
138. play it safe attitude of intelligence operative - raman offers feeble defence of same
139. in 1987 incidence of a khalistani attempting on rajiv gandhi with a pistol at rajghat was not properly communicated and tn sheshan killed career of an officer
140. S subramaniam stood his ground over local security arrangements in geneva
141. vip security arrangement are difficult due to official with no background in security interfering
142. officers change security drill to suit the convenience or ego of somebody close to VVIP
143. some sikhs celebrated killing of indira gandhi in front of indian embassy and distributed champagne
144. thatcher cooperated after wards & will never excise name of pakistan or ISI from reports shared by them
145. MI 5 has more gurumukhi experts than R&AW or IB
146. they refused requests to freeze bank accounts asking for direct correlation
147. CIA would cooperate but for state department which did not want to act against pakistan
148. pashtun truck drivers & bangaldeshi dock workers created toruble in karachi
149. baloch leaders had been given shelter by najibullah and used to visit india
150. tv and radio stations in rajasthan to telecast in sindhi or baloch language were planned but never took off
151. ojhri camp blast was by ISI to block probe in how stingers missiles were used by them
152. zia ul haqs death was celebrated in sindh
153. it was believed a shia airman from gilgit caused the crash
154. benajir wanted to stop disruption in punjab to which ISI said it means two divisions at no cost
155. ISI did cooperate with R&AW to get custody of four sikh soldiers who had crossed over
156. Benazir could become PM only after agreeing to let army & isi chief continue and give army control of nuclear programme
157. Najibullah sent messages that kashmiris were visitng afghan training camps but rajiv trusted benazir blindly
158. operation black thunder was much better than blue star & Gill was architect of same & ved marwah
159. he hopes that NPA will undertake recording of experiences of punjab episode
160. hindujas were indian by heart & mind, helped govt of india & held good contacts in UK & Iran
161. HKL Bhagat was hypocrite in not attending hinduja dinner while farooq abdullah was forthcoming
162. senior officials of CBI always partook hospitality of Hindujas
163. only narsimharao and vp sing stayed away from hindujas for perhaps they knew his involvement in bofors
164. rajivs personal habits were simple & austere & he deposited all gift received from abroad to president's house
165. CBI team met only people with little or no knowledge while leaving crucial people non examined
166. VP singh hired a pvt detective firefax to investigate bofors
167. AK verma did not let subbiah being transferred on complaint of chitra
168. geneva post was meant to liasion with Mossad
169. cover used by Mossad while coming to india was businessman from a south american nation
170. geneva was listening point on tibet, xinjiang, srilanka
171. IB helped Ghana in establishing its intelligence agencies kao & nair went there mentioned in book of Nair
172. R&AW has not built record of its role in Africa
173. LITTE kept ppl of its human rights organisations out of violent activities while khalistani did not take this precaution
174. People should be allowed to let steam else they will revolt
175. Natwar singh was reputed to be abrasive & uppish but had good reputation in africa & was loyal to indira gandhi
176. Raman did not share his source with Indian ambassador but he did not take it personally
177. worst threat to a R&AW officer posted abroad comes from wives of IFS officers
178. R&AW officers abroad only collect HUMINT not TECHINT
179. sankaran nair & verma were held in awe & respect in pakistan
180. if verma had continued as R&AW chief under rajiv gandhi for 2-3 more years they would have broken pakistan
181. R&AW was useufel in solving punjab issue by making pakistan realise their support will have domestic cost
182. indira did not like zia as he was friend to morarji
183. inder gujral destroyed india's covert capability in 1997
184. Rajiv gandhi took great interest in modernisation and computerisation of R&AW
185. R&AWs monopoly in TECHINT was broken in rajiv era when both Army & IB got their own capabiltiy
186. both IB & R&AW have started posting their officers aborad
187. bumper to bumper suveillance -india pakistan
188. there was rumour that NawazSharif was in love with sister of a bollywood actor
189. chinese let Rajiv meet Deng as son of indira but not narsimharao
190. chinese offered to supply oil to india during gulf war
191. R&AW was wrong about chinese military presence in tibet & MI was right
192. out of 16 R&AW chiefs till 2008 only 1 was china expert
193. officer who was caught hobnobbing with CIA station chief in chennai had cancelled a wedding for dowry
194. ravinder singh fooled R&AW by giving some non papers from his sister working in CIA
195. once before KPS gill visited somepne planted an IED without charrge in R&AW office
196. in 2006 at manmohans time NSCS was penetrated by CIA
197. opposition of IAS officers mean Rajiv could not do much to make life of R&AW officers comfortable
198. VP singh curried cheap popularity with extremists in kashmir & punjab
199. VC of srinagar univeristy was killed & captured people did not let george fernandes attend his funeral
200. Advani wanted R&AW to train RSS cadres of jammu in weapon handling
201. Jethmalani & Arun Nehru complained to VP singh that R&AW spied on them
202. During PVN R&AW started copying its reports to principal secretary & cabinet secretary
203. Jaswant singh suggested a parliamentary oversight committee during VP era
204. R&AW supports parliamentary oversight in non operational matters
205. resistance to parliamentary oversight comes more from political class than intelligence officers
206. every country gets the intelligence it deserves
207. Bajpai &Daulat improved man management in R&AW
208. During VP singhs time forces fought militancy without guidance from PM
209. subramanyam swamy when chandrashekhar was PM claimed to get oil for india from saddam but failed
210. western agencies used to meet opponents of najibullah in delhi without informing india
211. gul was professional & confident Durrani lacked both
212. cooperation between india paksitan on terrorism is impossible as even friendly nations cant cooperate on it
213. though they can both have a liaison relationship
214. JSverma commission did its job but not LC jain - planted many needles of suspicion without removing any of them
215. Raman praises CBI for uncoering the plan of killing rajiv gandhi
216. VP singh offered to depute official of SPG wanted by Rajiv to his security
217. German intelligence had reported about frequent visit of a tamil explosive expert to chennai
218. R&AW was not monitoring LITTEs communication whose security was poor
219. VVIP can be protected through effective anti explosive check and access control
220. JS Verma asked for an introspection session after rajiv murder but it turned out to be self justification
221. external affairs ministry used to think R&AW operatives would just provide public information by collating it
222. PVN was a born skeptic , he took himself also with a pinch of salt
223. JN dixit was jeolous of R&AW as high commissioner in srilanka
224. R&AW immersed ship of weapons for LITTE by pakistan..cabinet sec put a note to PVN what a pity details of this operation could not be revealed to media
225. R&AW had role in succesful visit of Rajiv to china in 1988 & in strengthening india's relation with russia post 1991
226. indira was very afraid of intelligence cooperation with western agencies without her knowledge
227. IB is responsible for counter intelligence
228. CIA penetrated IB at very high level in 1990
229. after indira gandhi our counter penetration architecture has weakened
230. R&AW failed to cultivate mirpuri muslims who had been actually displaced by pakistan
231. kidnap & killing of israeli tourists in kashmir turned american jews against pakistan & then CIA started helping india
232. benazir was friend with peter galbrith & got pakistan removed from list of states sponsoring terror
233. after 1993 pakistan stopped helping indigenous kashmiri militants
234. Benazir was angry with PVN for poor treatment when she came for Rajiv's funeral
235. Salman Khursheed & Farooq Abdullah fought resolution in 1994 but vajpayee took credit
236. Amitabh Chakrvarthi of Indian information service led PSYCH WAR against pakistan
237. HUssain Haqqani was close to ISI at one point of time
238. India today acted responsibly in not publishing alleged indian help to sindhis and baloch
239. Haqqani was out to badmouth Benazir & he was made US amb by Zardari..irony
240. SIMI members got trained in pakistan but did not do any disruptive activity after returning to india
241. Rao invited all officers of addnl sec & above level to explain his conduct during babri demolition & implied it was in karma of nation
242. Rao Pilot & Sharad pawar prevented riots after bombay blasts
243. Raman gives dues to IAS where due
244. R&AW made itself look like fool in advice given to PVN on meeting dalai lama & informing china about it
245. use of ARC planes by officers for personal travel
246. in bombay blast investigation R&AW & IB cooperated brilliantly
247. Kalpnath Rai had given shelter to bomb blast accused in guest house unknowingly
248. travel advisories during bombay blast issued by western nations were ridiculous but in those days we could tick off western nations
249. Kao said one should never trust US in matters concenring pakistan
250. JN Dixit felt IB officers were more transparent to him then R&AW
251. bombay blast were a case of failureo f integrity not intelligence as customs were aware of landing
252. 9/11 is karma of USA
253. never make a tall claim they have nasty habit of coming back to haunt you
254. dont be shy of admitting oyur inadequacies & failures
255. be strict with yourself & generous with others
256. give credit where its due avoid credit grabbing it makes you look cheap
257. a national intelligence advisor is necessary to coordinate work of all intelligence agencies

ITBP personnel get gallantry medal for Kedarnath Sacrifice

Having denied them their due for over one and a half years, the President will finally honour 15 ITBP men, who perished along with five IAF personnel in a chopper crash while conducting a rescue operation during the 2013 Uttarakhand floods, with gallantry medals on Republic Day.

The 15 ITBP personnel, of whom nine were deputed with National Disaster Response Force, had died in a chopper crash when they were returning from a rescue operation in Kedarnath on June 25, 2013. On January 26, 2014, the five IAF men who died along with them were given gallantry medals by the President, but the ITBP men were ignored.

Since recommendations are made by respective ministries for the medals, it was revealed that unlike Ministry of Defence, Home Ministry was not in favour recommending ITBP men for gallantry medals. The reasons cited were plain bureaucratic: that their deaths did not fit the parameters set by the home ministry for gallantry medals. It was decided instead to give them PM's Life Saving Medal. However, that too never came the personnel's way. The development had been seen as discriminatory affected the moral of the force.

The apathetic anomaly seems to have been corrected by the ministry under the new regime. The 15 men will now get Police Medal for Gallantry (PMG) posthumously.

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Techincal Support division aka TSD

Omerta is not just a word out of Mario Puzo. It is a pact of silence that exists within the exclusive club of men and women who wage war for their country in the shadows—the brotherhood of the intelligence community. It was cleaved apart last week when the long-standing political war between controversial former army chief General V K Singh and a section of the Army establishment in connivance with the government erupted again. The casualty was the Technical Support Division (TSD), one of India’s most clandestine and effective intelligence units, disbanded in July 2013 after General Bikram Singh took over as army chief in May 2012. Military Intelligence (MI) sources say that under severe interrogation to implicate General V K Singh in “anti-national operations,” some of its best officers who earned their stripes in Kashmir have become psychological wrecks. Their cover blown, facing hostile enquiry boards and fearing for the safety of their families, the former agents have written to Defence Minister A K Antony to provide them security. An excerpt from a letter by an officer’s wife notes that “For reasons best known to him probably because of his secretive nature of job he refuses to divulge organisational issues with me but has on numerous occasions in the last two months expressed death wish and suicidal thoughts due to organisational stress. He once did say that all this media hype has unnecessarily exposed him as a field operator. Therefore, he strongly believes that there is a chance of a threat to his life and to the life of his sources/informers who operate within inimical/terrorist organisations.” The Army’s response was to institute a court of enquiry against her to investigate the allegations. Ironically, she has not been summoned even once in spite of two sittings nor is she being discharged of the inquiry

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MHA to launch a security web portal

Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh has decided to launch a web portal ‘MySecurity.in’ that will be a platform for innovation in the field of security related web applications. Any individual, company, student, NGO etc can develop and deploy on this portal such security applications which may be useful to the people. It will enable the general public to get access to a large number of security related applications.

The main objective of launching the web portal ‘MySecurity.in’ is to promote innovation in developing security related applications as well as offer to the people safe and trusted applications for their security needs. People will have options to choose the applications best suited for their requirements.

The MHA will give priority on this website to host such applications which provide security in emergency situations to women, children, senior citizens and other vulnerable groups. Other applications that will get priority include tools to monitor objectionable content posted on internet and tools to monitor, prevent, detect and report cyber crime. Thrust areas will also include applications that create awareness about good security practices among people and also educating them about legal provisions and applications facilitating legal services to the needy persons.

Application developers, meeting the basic screening criteria, will be allowed hardware and middleware resources in a cloud based environment to deploy their applications. An expert group constituted by MHA will also evaluate the application on parameters like usefulness, innovation, public acceptance, technology used, maintenance, updation, feedback mechanism etc.

DNA bank of unidentified bodies

The Centre on Monday responded positively to a PIL by NGO Lokniti Foundation and said it has drafted a bill for creating DNA data bank of all unidentified bodies to help find possible link between missing persons and unidentified bodies.

The NGO, through advocate Ashok Dhamija, had suggested keeping DNA profile of the bodies before their disposal to help break the news of the death to families waiting for their missing near and dear ones.

Appearing for the Centre, additional solicitor general Neeraj Kishan Kaul said an expert committee appointed by the department of biotechnology had examined privacy-related issues in the draft 'Human DNA Profiling Bill" and suggested several categories of such profiling, which included the category of unidentified bodies.

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SMART police station

As per the directives by Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh, the Ministry of Home Affairs has decided to allocate specific funds for setting up of SMART police stations in each state shortly and will work towards the founding of more SMART police stations during the next financial year.

A concept of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, SMART police stations (S-Sensitive and Strict; M-Modern with mobility; A- Alert and Accountable; R- Reliable and Responsive; T- Trained and Techno-savvy) will seek to be also the primary point of interaction between citizens and the police.

Among the suggested features of a SMART police station are basic amenities for visitors, including a waiting area, toilets and drinking water; rest room for constables, including separate room for women constables; natural lighting and ventilation, CCTV, record room, communication room for wireless, computers, and so on; and automated kiosks for filing of complaints by the public

While the concept of SMART is certainly smart but is thinking on correct track? Most of components suggested are of a "model" police station rather than "smart". First as has been common with all indian schemes ( for schools, roads, tourism) its main focus seems to be hard infrastrucutre. Nothing wrong with it but what private firms call "non linear" growth should be the paradigm here.

A typical refrain one often hears is we are so and so number short of policemen. Basis? Data from developed nations. What is assumed here is that we have similar crime patterns, geogrpahical distribution of population & more importantly same efficiency of police forcce both on individual as well as unit level (i.e. police station) as developed nations which is not supported by any research whatsoever.

Sensitive & strict should mean that each complaint should be looked into;and people not shooed away & strict means once it is established that crime has taken place, police should be relentless in pursuing criminals & seeing to it that they meet justice. In USA it is not uncommon to hear about reversal of homicide or rape convictions done years ago after new forensic methods like DNA have come into vogue. In Indian police stations once the chargesheet is filed or culprits arrested very little attention is paid to witness protection or good upkeep of record.

Waiting room with basic amenities for visitors is good idea but what happens to their small complaints? Lets go back to Muzzafarnagar riots. Starting point was eve teasing of a girl who complained to her brothers about it who took matter in their hand. Why did the girl or her brothers did not feel that they should go to local police first? A sensitive police would mean first point of contact should be trained in listening to complainant.A transparent & time bound escalation mechanism where CO,SPP, DIG, IG are easily accesible using technology and not in "darbar" fashion which is in vogue nowadyas will ensure sensitive policing.
Often a poor person comes with little land where he has dispute with some neighbour or relative. Instead of washing hands by saying its civil matter, a sensitive police officer would connect him to free legal aid cell of district or probation officer so that he can initiate civil proceedings. Marital disputes likewise should be referred to NGOs working in the domain.A biweekly meeting of relevant functionaries of district & local administration with police will go in long way in making dispensation of justice sensitive than "marking" of complaints from one office to other

It is also necessary that an apparatus for prosecution is created parallel to police apparatus i.e. police station, circle, district & range level. As one of my seniors used to say to make sure a criminal meets his creator five links in criminal justice chain should remain intact i.e. complainant, witness, Investigating officer or IO, public prosecuotr & Judge. A criminal needs to manage just one of five elements i.e. either scare away witness, bribe any of above five, public prosecutor may lose interest with time or complainant go weary i.e. why each SMART police station should have a wing looking after prosecution.

M stands for Modern with mobility. It will be instructive to see fuel allocations for police station jeeps in North Indian states. An SHO is almost always expected to manage almost everything.A time and motion studies of activities being done at a Police station both in terms of man hours as well physical resources like fuel, stationery, power, bandwidth is must. Especially in rural area where distances are large & its not advisable to go alone or on two wheeler, an SHO has to come twice or thrice to district HQ for meetings. Sometimes SHO spends full day just to get a remand from court or submit some document. Why? Video confrencing is exclusive preserve of higher officials & conference call on telelphone or computer so common in multinational companies working across geographies are taboo in Indian babudom.
Mobility should not merely mean buying vehicles with higer horse power or RPM but it should also mean improving response time. After getting a complaint on phone or from control room how many minutes it takes to scramble the response team? How much time it takes to reach spot? Unless these KRAs are introduced we will end up buying vehicles & gadgets only.

A stands for alert & accountable. Right now YoY crime figures, time taken to investigate a case or chargesheet filed & no of cases succesfully traced are broad parameters on which Police brass is measured. Recently Delhi police went for free FIR & there is a famous "jalpaiguri" experiment in record books.It would be interesting to note roughly 1/3rd of FIRs today are registered on direction of court.Imagine a poor person from village has to hire a lawyer, go to a city court two-three times just to get a complaint registered!! This needs to be stopped.

Complainant can always be informed via sms of the progress of his/her case & similarly witnesses of date of their deposition. By suitable changes in law & taking judiciary on board statements of witnesses can be recorded even before filing of chargesheet as later they might turn hostile or it may be cumbersome for them to depose. Imagine a road accident on noida expressway or a theft in a train, a witness if assured that he/she will not be troubled after few months or years to go to that place & depose will be willing to tell what has transpired. As things are today there is no such assurance so finding a witness is biggest concern for police.
Accountable should also mean that how many chargesheets are resulting in conviction. This is crucial as this is dependent on quality of investigation, right procedure being followed, chain of custody being maintained, timely & correct fornesic tests being conducted. But a tortoise paced judicial system of India means that it is next to impossible to evaluate an officer on this parameter as many of cases investigated by him will not go to hearing itself for a year or two & final judgmenet may well take 5-6 years.

R stands for reliable & responsive. How many times one has called 100 number & found a busy tone. Do all control rooms have phones with caller ID so that they can call back if a caller is not able to contiue the call due to distress? Are ambulance avaialble at call or paramedics available at control room?Is it guaranteed that there will always be a doctor at hospital to treat a victim of accident or a magistrate to give custoady of minor offendor or expelled woman to right government instiutions.Is there incident registering & monitoring sytem where any transgression from ideal is being captured, documented & analysed periodically with corrective action being taken. This & especially availability of magistrate is a reason why hold out states (MP,UP & Bihar) should also adopt commissionarate system to improve responsiveness of system.

T stands for trained & tech savy.Have we defined like private sector minimum number of days each policeman/woman should undergo training every year? Whatever training constabulary receives is on initiative of a senior officer who may not be there always.Every few years there is no audit of future requirments of skill sets & training of current forces accordingly.This is not to suggest it does not happen but it is neither insitutionalised nor strucutured.

To sum it all after a long time we have a government which is not afraid to tread a new path.But are we sure we are treading a new path or just going in circles.
If SMART police station is only about hard infrastructure without process efficieny or business process reengineering it may not yield its full potential.
In passing it would be great if states resist temptation of setting up model PS in capital cities or urban areas.It would be wonderful if MP has SMART police station in Bhind or Murena, UP in Badayun or Tamilnadu in caste war infested Ramnad.

Cyber Crime

“Illegal gains” and “harassment” are the top cyber crime motives, the data reveal. The majority of crimes are registered under “others”; 2,144 cases were registered in this category in 2013. Such a high number of cases registered in “others” implies that the current laws and regulations aren’t detailed enough to tackle cyber crime.

Instead of bunching cyber crime in the “others” category, they should be specifically classified, said Sunil Abraham, founder-director of Bangalore’s Centre for Internet & Society.

 

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Maharashtra's principal secretary for Information Technology (IT) department, Rakesh Aggarwal, in a recent case, directed six banks, one mobile operator and a card company to pay Rs1.06 crore compensation to victims of online frauds who have been duped over past two years.

 

According to a report in The Times of India, the order for compensation was issued by the state government's equivalent of a Cyber Crime Court, which is presided over by the principal secretary in charge of information technology. "The principle secretary, Rakesh Aggarwal, functions as adjudication officer under Section 45 of the IT Act 2000. The banks that have been ordered to pay compensation include Central Bank of India, Royal Bank of Scotland, Punjab National Bank, IndusInd Bank, Yes Bank, State Bank of India. Other institutions who have been directed to pay are Vodafone and SBI Cards," the report says

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Etiquette is important. In September last year, US President Barack Obama was criticised for saluting a marine as he left a helicopter while continuing to hold a cup of coffee. "It has been said that a sloppy salute is worse than not saluting at all," says the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, which, like many other non-military organisations, also salutes.

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“Within 40 weeks, all CCTV cameras in all five zones were supposed to be functional. However, as per the implementation report sent to Director General of Police and Home Secretary on July 28, 2014, installation work for Zone 1 was not completed and the work on Zone 3 and 4 had not even started,” reads the report. Several elected representatives – MLAs and corporators – had provided funds from their development fund to sponsor the project of the state government. Most of the money spent so far has been from this fund. more here

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