The Prime Minister-headed Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) has cleared the names of Syed Asif Ibrahim and Alok Joshi as heads of the Intelligence Bureau and the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) respectively.
Yashovardhan Azad, who was considered for the post of IB Director, has been shifted as Secretary (Security) in the Cabinet Secretariat.
Mr. Ibrahim, who will be the first Muslim IPS officer to head the IB, will join the organisation as Officer-on-Special Duty (OSD) on December 1 and succeed Nehchal Sandhu on December 31 to head the organisation for a fixed term of two years.
Mr. Ibrahim is a veteran of the IB’s operations directorate and was until last year, the IB station chief in London. To his credit, Mr. Ibrahim was the first one to have a clear sense of the whole Indian Mujahideen movement within the organisation.
Significantly, Mr. Ibrahim’s appointment saw at least four of his senior officers being moved out of the IB. The current second-in-command R.N. Gupta has been moved to the Cabinet Secretariat as OSD, while V. Rajagopal will join the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Mr. Azad will also be the administrative head of the Special Protection Group (SPG) and responsible for security of VVIPs. Another senior IPS officer S. Jayaraman will head the Hyderabad-based National Police Academy.
Mr. Joshi, who will take over from Sajeev Tripathi as RAW chief, has vast experience in internal and external intelligence gathering.
