13 April,2011 06:21 AM IST | | J Dey
Tabs kept on the fund by top cop revealed the anomaly; senior officers are now being hauled up to explain where all the money went
THE Secret Service Fund (SSF) allotted to law enforcement agencies to gather human intelligence has put the city police in a catch-22 situation.
Rs 25 lakh is believed to have been siphoned off the fund in the past few weeks by officers in the force, but the secrecy shrouding it has made investigation an onerous task.
Seniors have been given the task to find where the Rs 25 lakh are
SSF, used to pay informers and other sources of information, is kept free of accountability for security reasons and it is not mandatory for officers to declare where and how much of it was spent.
It is so secretive, in fact, that most agencies deny its very existence.
Tabs kept on the fund by Commissioneru00a0 Arup Patnaik, revealed the anomaly, however, and seniors have now been asked to get their juniors to give an account of where and how the Rs 25 lakh was spent.
"There are reasons to believe that the money was spent unscrupulously.
There have been cases in the past when senior officers have made juniors sign on the dotted line to withdraw money from the fund and the junior officers, too, have withdrawn extra money on the pretext of paying informers," said a senior officer.
He added that rewards given to encounter specialists are also pooled from the SSF and they are meant to be shared with informers, but that is rarely done.
"Investigation has been initiated, but it is going to be difficult to zero-in on the suspects because of the secretive nature of the way the money is spent.
Seniors have been asked to give an account of the major operations undertaken in the past few weeks and the money spent on them," said the officer.
Security fee
A huge amount of money is allotted as SSF to almost all the enforcement agencies for collection of HUMINT or human intelligence for reasons of national security every year. The amount is always kept under wraps but is believed to run into a few thousand crores.
The Research and Analysis Wing and the Intelligence Bureau are allotted the biggest chunks and the remainder goes to agencies like the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Customs, Enforcement Directorate, Border Security Force Intelligence, Military Intelligence.
"HUMINT is essential for reasons of national security. And, while every penny spent can't result in useful information each time, the fund is needed because it has regularly yielded information needed to protect the country," said a senior officer.
Records of SSF drawn by various agencies are shared by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIT) and the National Security Council Secretariat, which are the apex intelligence coordination agencies.
The Other Side
Police spokesperson DCP Rajkumar Vhatkar did not wish to comment on the issue.
