| PMO, retired Maj. Gen. coordinating NSI, DGFI, SSF, RAB, SB et al So the Home Ministry has not much of a job now to perform as the Government has relieved it of its traditional responsibility of coordinating the activities of the intelligence agencies after about three decades. Now the policy makers' goal is not to detect the causes of the Home Ministry's failure in coordinating or strengthening the intelligence agencies. The responsibility now has been entrusted upon the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the man in charge is defence affairs adviser Maj. Gen. (Retd) Tariq Ahmed Siddiqui, brother-in-law of Sheikh Rehana, younger sister of the Prime Minister, informed sources said. A gazette notification to this effect was also issued in the first week of August. The coordinator Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Tariq Siddiqui will coordinate the activities of National Security Intelligence (NSI), Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Special Security Force (SSF), Police Department including Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Special Branch (SB) of Police under the name of National Committee to Coordinate Intelligence Agencies (NCCIA). It is a six-member committee to be represented by the cabinet secretary and PM's principal secretary along with the chiefs of NSI, DGFI, SSF and police under the Coordinator. It may be pointed out that Maj. Gen. (Retd) Tariq Siddiqui has also been entrusted with the tasks of overseeing the reappointments of officers who were sacked or were retired during the last BNP regime and adopt measures against those officials as suggested by General (Retd) Moeen. After the BDR carnage the Government was enraged at the failure of intelligence agencies that had "no knowledge" of such a "great conspiracy" of cold-blooded slaughter of a large number of senior Army officers including Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, former DG of the BDR, the sources added. The Government has taken a relatively nominal action against the DGFI, which at the time of Peelkhana carnage was run by the AL Government-appointed DGFI chief and some other trusted aides. The Military Intelligence (MI) was also spared because it was then run under the command of Army chief General Moeen U Ahmed. Mysteriously, the role of MI in the backdrop of brutal death of such a large number of officers and dishonouring women members of their families have never been questioned, said the sources. The MI always keeps its surveillance related to security of the army officials and their activities or any other institutions. The reasons for controlling the intelligence agencies from a single office, which is the seat of political power, are many, according to the sources. One reason is to ensure the desired environment in the sensitive areas during the hearing on the leave appeal of Sheikh Mujib murder case trial before all other sensitive matters like BDR carnage and proposed war criminal trial. 'RATS' and others Meanwhile, the Home Ministry is learnt to be busy to track the activities of some AL leaders; it has been asked to pay more attention to the activities of senior leaders such as Abdur Razzaq, Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta nicknamed 'RATS' and other suspects, said the sources. At the moment some high-ups of the Home Ministry daily check the phone records of some political leaders from both the Opposition and the Government when they enter the chambers in the first hours, they added. |
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