New Delhi, Jul 15: With the CBI grilling Intelligence Bureau Special Director Rajinder Kumar in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, the nation's top intelligency agency IB has stopped giving specific inputs about terror activities to different branches of government, sources said.
Internal security now appears to be at risk, with the CBI and IB at loggerheads over the Ishrat Jahan encounter issue.
The IB is now sharing only those inputs with the states, which is getting from other agencies who are part of MAC (Multi Agency Centre).
A senior Home Ministry official said, he has not seen an specific IB alert in the last one month. The IB, presently headed by Syed Asif Ibrahim, is supposed to send alerts daily to the Home Ministry and the PMO (Prime Minister's Office).
In addition, the IB also used to send inputs of disturbances, terror conspiracies and unrest, to the Home Ministry. The Centre in turn used to forward these alerts to the respective state or states.
The senior Home Ministry official said, IB inputs are vital for internal security, and cannot be overlooked.
The input about the serial blasts at Bodh Gaya shrine, had come not from IB, but from some other agency through MAC, the official pointed out. That input was forwarded to Bihar government as part of routine standard procedure.
It was because of this, he said, that inadequate security measures were taken at the Mahabodhi shrine, and the terrorists had a free run of the place.
The IB, in the past, not only used to share inputs with the state governments, but also actively took part in foiling the terror plots, the official said. But after the Ishrat Jahan encounter, IB officials are now wary of taking a pro-active role.
IB director Syed Asif Abrahim has written to both the Prime Minister and Home Minister questioning CBI's role in interrogating senior IB officials, but the government of the day appears to be reluctant to intervene because of political compulsions, sources said.
A senior IB official involved in anti-terror operations said clearly: "So long as the government does not promise protection to IB in cases like Ishrat Jahan, it will be difficult for us to conduct operations in future."
