Terror alerts to go through 3 tiers
All terror alerts being issued by Central intelligence agencies to states, particularly those involving neighbouring countries, will henceforth have to go through a stringent mechanism of scrutiny. The government has now decided that such terror advisories will now be subjected to verification at three levels: Firstly there will be a thorough check by a nodal officer within the division of the concerned agency that issues the alert. Secondly, the input will have to be scanned by the Multi-Agency Centre of the Intelligence Bureau and finally the third screening will be done by the Joint Intelligence Committee under the Cabinet Secretariat.
It is only after the intelligence input passes the scrutiny at all three levels that it will be forwarded to the States and other concerned units for action.
Highly-placed government sources said the move comes in wake of a recent fiasco by the country’s premiere external intelligence agency RAW where it issued a terror alert saying five Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militants had entered India through the sea route and they were likely to target vital installations in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab. But it was later revealed that three of these suspected militants were actually present in Lahore where two of them were working as businessmen while the third was employed as a security guard.
The alert had caused considerable embarrassment to the government and even triggered a blame game among various intelligence agencies. It was later revealed that wrong information was deliberately planted on RAW by a Pakistan-based “high value source” to tarnish the outfit’s reputation.
“Such goof ups will not be tolerated again and this is precisely the reason why the government has now put in place a system of checks and balances. And we need to be very sensitive if the inputs relates to a foreign country,” a top government functionary said.
Though the government in its directive has not mentioned about terror alerts related to Pakistan but sources said all intelligence and security agencies have been sensitised to handle intelligence inputs originating from Pakistan with “utmost caution”.
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