Telangana Counter Intelligence wing added another feather to its cap by securing leads about Saifullah, the terror suspect gunned down in Lucknow two days ago in connection with the train blast near Ujjain.
Accolades and laurels are nothing new for this unit of the State police force, but the seeds for this secret wing were sown in the erstwhile united State of Andhra Pradesh. C. Anjaneya Reddy, a retired IPS officer who was regarded a visionary in police department, was among the key persons responsible for creation of the wing.
Mr. Reddy, senior police officers maintain, conceived the idea of recruiting Sub-Inspector level candidates separately for Intelligence wing in police department. “That was in the early 90s and the first ever exclusive recruitment test for SIs was undertaken in 1995.
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By then, left-wing extremism was still at its peak and was the main challenge for law-enforcing agencies of the State. There was no serious threat of terrorist outfits then, but a spree of low-intensity bomb blasts, which rocked Hyderabad from August 12 to December 6 in 1993 made some officers think that it was time for an exclusive wing to keep tabs on terror suspects as well.
“They believed that Intelligence officers -- especially in the rank of SIs -- needed separate recruitment and training to check terror related activities,” a police officer said. Once the CI cell was formed, a massive exercise of keeping files, data and profiles of organisations and terror operatives from all parts of the country was started.
“Unlike other wings of police, members of CI cell are not given tasks other than anti-terror surveillance. They would operate clandestinely and don't mingle with media or others,” a police officer explained.
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In other wings of police department, normally men and officers are inducted through reference or recommendation. In CI cell, the ability of the officers are assessed before allowing them in and assigning a task.
They have modern equipments and gadgets - be it related to eavesdropping or tracking suspicious online activities. In fact, even the idea Telangana State’s CI cell to counsel youngsters getting attracted towards Islamic State (IS) instead of registering criminal cases against them was appreciated by the Centre.
From passing on the leads about the Base Movement, an outfit that carried out explosions on court premises in some southern States to Saifullah's movements in Lucknow, the CI cell of Telangana has been playing a crucial role in keeping an eye on movements of terror suspects.