Intelligence mechanism to monitor terror activities in northeast

Agartala, Nov 9 (IANS) The central government has decided to set up an effective intelligence gathering mechanism for the northeastern states by forming a body called the Common Surveillance Facilities (CSF), officials said here Sunday.

'The senior most additional director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) would be the head of the proposed CSF, whose independent officials would work in each of the eight northeastern states and gather intelligence about militants' activities in the region and across the border,' said Tripura chief secretary Sashi Prakash.

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'The CSF would institutionalise all intelligence inputs and general information and put them into action at the ground level, besides alerting the state governments,' Prakash told IANS.

The formation of the CSF and several other decisions were taken at a crucial meeting in New Delhi last week. Chief secretaries and the director general of all the northeastern states, cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrashekar, top officials of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), chiefs of various central paramilitary forces, director general of military operations and civil and intelligence officials attended the meet chaired by National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan.

'Security along the international borders with the northeast, especially with Bangladesh, would be further tightened to prevent cross-border movement of militants, besides shipping of arms and explosives,' Prakash said.

He said the central government has agreed to provide more funds to all the northeast states for modernisation of security forces, necessary training of state police personnel by the National Security Guards (NSG) and equipping the state forces to deal with the prevailing tensions.

The meet was called on the request of Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

'I have also urged Manmohan Singh to convene a meeting of the northeast chief ministers to discuss strategies to deal with security threats in the region,' Sarkar told IANS.