B.RAMAN
The Government of India needs to be complimented
for its reported decision to appoint Shri Nehchal Sandhu, who will be retiring
as the Director of the Intelligence Bureau on December 31,2012, as Officer on
Special Duty in the National Security
Council Secretariat (NSCS) to be in charge of internal security .It has been
reported that he will be ultimately taking over as the Deputy National Security
Adviser on March 21 when the current incumbent Ms Lata Reddy completes her tenure.
2.Shri Sandhu, who is from the Bihar cadre of the
IPS, is an officer in the mould of Shri M.K.Narayanan and Shri Ajit Doval, both
of whom headed the IB with tremendous distinction. Like them, he is a
clandestine operative par excellence and a brilliant analyst.
3.Shri Doval and Shri Sandhu built up the
counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism capabilities of the IB in difficult
years and contributed immensely to the fight against terrorism and insurgencies
of various hues. Their names should figure prominently in any official account
of the role of the IB in counter-terrorism.
4. When I was in service, I had an opportunity of working
closely with Shri Doval and Shri Sandhu,
then a young officer, in the case relating to the kidnapping of Liviu Radu, a Romanian diplomat posted in New Delhi, by some
Khalistani terrorists in 1991. The credit for getting the diplomat released without
conceding any of the demands of the terrorists should go to these two officers
and to Shri Narayanan, the then DIB, who co-ordinated an excellent, copybook
counter-terrorism operation.
5.. Shri Sandhu is a very pleasant officer, who has
enjoyed a consistent reputation as a good team player with no trace of service
or institutional parochialism. He got along well with other agencies of the
intelligence community and the Multi-Agency Centre of the IB, which co-ordinates
the counter-terrorism operations across the country, came of age under him.
6.Many, including me, had a feeling that under Shri
P.Chidambaram, as the Home Minister, the internal security role of the NSCS
tended to get diluted. Shri Sandhu, with his vast experience in intelligence and
physical security, is the right choice to restore to the NSCS its due role as a
co-ordinating centre in internal security strategizing.
7.Shri Sandhu will be an asset to Shri Shivsankar
Menon, the National Security Adviser, in the processing and implementation of
the recommendations of the Naresh Chandra Task Force on the modernization of
our national security set-up. Its flagship chapters relate to internal
security, intelligence revamp and cyber security and an experienced officer
like Shri Sandhu should be of immense assistance to the NSA and the Government in ensuring effective
implementation.
8. The appointment of an outgoing DIB as the Deputy
NSA should facilitate the current exercise to create the concept of an
intelligence community in our country on the pattern of that in the US.
9.Shri Sandhu will be succeeding Ms.Lata Reddy, an
officer of the IFS,who had played a commendable role in counter-terrorism as
the Indian Ambassador to Portugal. Her tenure as the Deputy NSA was marked by
the initiation by her of an exercise to strengthen our TECHINT and cyber
security capabilities. Credit should also go to her for steering successfully the work of the Naresh Chandra Task Force.
10. Shri Satish Chandra, another IFS officer, who
held charge as Deputy NSA under the late Shri Brajesh Mishra and the late Shri Mani Dixit, was the moving spirit behind
the successful work of the Group of Ministers of the Atal Behari Vajpayee
Government for the revamping of the national security set-up.
11. Ms Lata Reddy, under Shri Menon, played a
similar praiseworthy role in respect of the Naresh Chandra Task Force for the
modernisation of our national security set-up. Shri Sandhu will be a worthy
successor to her.
12.Shri Sandhu had accompanied the Home Secretary
on his visit to Islamabad earlier this year. This should have given him an
opportunity to get to know senior officers of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau
and Internal Security Ministry. This should facilitate his interactions with
them in his new role ( 20-12-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter
@SORBONNE75 )
