External threat: NSG to recce CBI building

The new Central Bureau of Investigation building at Bandra-Kurla Complex faces an external threat with the Centre deputing a special unit of the National Security Guards (NSG) to draw up a crisis plan. The unit consisting of one senior officer and two personnel will carry out a reconnaissance on May 12 and 13 to chalk out a standard operating procedure for any developing crisis situation facing the 13-storey structure.

Senior CBI officials said the threat is in the nature of a terror attack. The recce team will be monitored from Delhi by Lt. Col. Mandeep Singh, who will be briefed on the existing security measures from the local police. A nodal officer will provide the NSG with a blueprint of the structure, floor plan, and digital walk through of the building. “In addition, the local police and the administration must participate in the recce so that the operation mechanism during a crisis is coordinated and fine-tuned,” Lt. Col. Singh said in a letter to the CBI. Before the inauguration of the building, constructed at a cost of Rs 103 crore, the different departments of the CBI were functioning from rented premises around the city. The building has several facilities like an auditorium, a regional training centre, conference rooms, scientific interrogation rooms, canteen, rainwater harvesting, fire alarm and firefighting systems, sewage treatment plant, RO water filtration, and a library.

CBI director Anil Sinha had said at the inauguration on March 1 that the number of cases being handed over to the agency by the Constitutional Courts and State governments has gone up over the years, and a modern building would boost its functioning. “Though the CBI started as an Anti-Corruption Agency, its scope has increased over the last few decades to include economic offences, serious frauds, and sensational cases under the IPC.”

The unit will chalk out a standard operating procedure for

any crisis situation