Under heavy fire after executing yet another allegedly fake encounter that left a Delhi-based businessman, accused of cheating, dead over the weekend, the controversial anti-terror unit of the Delhi Police is readying for a ‘complete overhaul’, sources claim.
According to a senior police official, the first among a slew of changes scheduled for the Special Cell would be its very name which, according to a source ‘has, over the years, become synonymous with controversy’. This would be followed by technical amendments to its structure to ensure that the Delhi Police Commissioner had more role in its daily affairs.
No deadline, according to senior police officials privy to the overhaul plan, has been set for the procedure so far. However, there seemed to be certainty at least in respect of rechristening it as the Delhi Police Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) in line with the preset nomenclature for similar units currently operating across several State police forces.
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“ There is a view within the police establishment that the anti-terror unit function like any other ATS of a State police agency which reports directly to the Director General of Police which, in Delhi’s case, would be the Delhi Police Commissioner,” said an officer.
A source said the decision was a ‘timely one’ given ‘the fact that there was lack of coordination between the incumbent Delhi Police Commissioner and the officer at the helm of the Special Cell’.
In several interactions over the recent past, the source said, the latter had ‘refused to follow directions from the Commissioner to involve itself in operations against street criminals’ citing ‘its special mandate’.
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“The overhaul will most prominently be based on replacing the manpower currently in the unit with fresh blood drawn from across the force,” the source added.