| by B.Raman
( December 20,
2012, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Government of India needs to be
complimented for its reported decision to appoint Shri Nehchal Sandhu, who will
be retiring as the Director of the Intelligence Bureau on December 31,2012, as
Officer on Special Duty in the National
Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) to be in charge of internal security .It
has been reported that he will be ultimately taking over as the Deputy National
Security Adviser on March 21 when the current incumbent Ms Lata Reddy completes
her tenure.
Shri Sandhu, who
is from the Bihar cadre of the IPS, is an officer in the mould of Shri
M.K.Narayanan and Shri Ajit Doval, both of whom headed the IB with tremendous
distinction. Like them, he is a clandestine operative par excellence and a
brilliant analyst.
Shri Doval and
Shri Sandhu built up the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism capabilities
of the IB in difficult years and contributed immensely to the fight against
terrorism and insurgencies of various hues. Their names should figure
prominently in any official account of the role of the IB in counter-terrorism.
When I was in
service, I had an opportunity of working closely with Shri Doval and Shri Sandhu, then a young officer, in the
case relating to the kidnapping of Liviu Radu, a Romanian diplomat posted in New Delhi, by
some Khalistani terrorists in 1991. The credit for getting the diplomat
released without conceding any of the demands of the terrorists should go to
these two officers and to Shri Narayanan, the then DIB, who co-ordinated an
excellent, copybook counter-terrorism operation.
Shri Sandhu is a
very pleasant officer, who has enjoyed a consistent reputation as a good team
player with no trace of service or institutional parochialism. He got along
well with other agencies of the intelligence community and the Multi-Agency
Centre of the IB, which co-ordinates the counter-terrorism operations across
the country, came of age under him.
Many, including
me, had a feeling that under Shri P.Chidambaram, as the Home Minister, the
internal security role of the NSCS tended to get diluted. Shri Sandhu, with his
vast experience in intelligence and physical security, is the right choice to
restore to the NSCS its due role as a co-ordinating centre in internal security
strategizing.
Shri Sandhu will
be an asset to Shri Shivsankar Menon, the National Security Adviser, in the
processing and implementation of the recommendations of the Naresh Chandra Task
Force on the modernization of our national security set-up. Its flagship
chapters relate to internal security, intelligence revamp and cyber security
and an experienced officer like Shri Sandhu should be of immense assistance to
the NSA and the Government in ensuring
effective implementation.
The appointment
of an outgoing DIB as the Deputy NSA should facilitate the current exercise to create
the concept of an intelligence community in our country on the pattern of that
in the US.
Shri Sandhu will
be succeeding Ms.Lata Reddy, an officer of the IFS,who had played a commendable
role in counter-terrorism as the Indian Ambassador to Portugal. Her tenure as
the Deputy NSA was marked by the initiation by her of an exercise to strengthen
our TECHINT and cyber security capabilities. Credit should also go to her for
steering successfully the work of the Naresh
Chandra Task Force.
Shri Satish
Chandra, another IFS officer, who held charge as Deputy NSA under the late Shri
Brajesh Mishra and the late Shri Mani
Dixit, was the moving spirit behind the successful work of the Group of
Ministers of the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government for the revamping of the
national security set-up.
Ms Lata Reddy,
under Shri Menon, played a similar praiseworthy role in respect of the Naresh
Chandra Task Force for the modernisation of our national security set-up. Shri
Sandhu will be a worthy successor to her.
Shri Sandhu had
accompanied the Home Secretary on his visit to Islamabad earlier this year.
This should have given him an opportunity to get to know senior officers of the
Pakistani Intelligence Bureau and Internal Security Ministry. This should facilitate
his interactions with them in his new role .
( The writer is
Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi.
E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter @SORBONNE75 )
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