The Kerala Cabinet decided to form an internal security investigation branch in the State police on Wednesday.
Briefing the media after the weekly Cabinet meeting here, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said the squad would be solely for investigating cases connected to internal security in the State.
The Cabinet had sanctioned the posts of a Superintendent of Police, two Deputy Superintendents of Police and nine others for the branch. The Chief Minister said that it would be a permanent set-up under a Superintendent of Police.
The new branch would handle all cases connected to extremist and terrorist activities. He said that extremism and terrorist activities were not confined to the Muslim community alone. Asked whether the assault on a college professor (T.J. Joseph of Newman College, Thodupuzha) at Muvattupuzha recently and the current unearthing of stockpiled arms indicated an intelligence failure, Mr. Achuthanandan said the police had provided security to the professor for a few days.
After a few days, the security was gradually withdrawn. The police could not learn that the extremists were waiting to strike.
M.Tech. courses
The Chief Minister said that new Master of Technology (M.Tech.) courses would be started in the Thrissur engineering college in manufacturing systems management, communication engineering and signal processing, water resources and hydro informatics, internal combustion and turbo machinery and power electronics from this academic year.
