The Central Government today appointed Dineshwar Sharma, a 1979-batch Kerala cadre Indian Police Service officer, as Director of the Intelligence Bureau, the senior-most position in the IPS cadre.
The appointments committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday issued the orders appointing Sharma as the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the IB with immediate effect till December 31. He will take over as IB Director from January 1. He will have a two-year tenure at the top post.
Sharma will take over from Syed Asif Ibrahim, whose two-year term is ending. Sharma, who is the Special Director in the IB, has been in the bureau for more than two decades. “A formal order has been issued today,” an official said.
Sharma is often referred to as master analyst and has worked extensively in Jammu and Kashmir. He faces a gamut of challenges, the key being the sudden upping of ante by Pakistan along the 198 km International Border in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistan firing is now mostly directed in the International Border segment and lesser along the 749 km Line of Control.
The bureau faces severe staff crunch with at least 30 per cent posts in lying vacant. The IB has 26,800 posts of which only 18,800 are occupied. Former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had first spoken about increasing the strength of the IB in 2009.
Sharma will need to focus on how homegrown terror groups have tied up with international outfits to run operations in India. The most notable was the arrest of Abu Jundal, who was deported from Saudi Arabia in June 2012. He was in the ‘Karachi control room’ when 10-gunmen launched simultaneous attacks in Mumbai in November 2008. The arrest of Riyaz Bhatkal, an Indian Mujahideen operative, from a hideout in Nepal showed how the Indian jihadis have spread.
No comments:
Post a Comment