Consensus A General for Rajya Sabha Thwarting ISI Steps by Bengal govt to check the ISI Then & Now Village planning under Left Regime Human Rights WBHRC is happy with State Govt performance

The West Bengal government has taken up a wideranging programme to thwart the machinations and activities of the ISI in the state. The state police minister Buddadev Bhattacharya has said that his government is already geared up to the task and that the vacant positions in the Intelligence Branch as well as other departments in the security set-up have been filled . Bhattacharya, in the wake of the New Jalpaiguri blast, said that there were indeed some gaps in the security blast in as much as that the state did not have adequate forces and a set-up to combat the highly sophisticated penetration capabilities of the ISI. Bhattacharya said that the state was doing its best to combat the ISI and that security at the Sankosh, Teesta and Sevak bridges had been beefed up while IB offices were being opened in places where there were none earlier. Bhattacharya said that while the state administration was fully alert and alive to the problem, there was nothing much that the state administration could do apart from what it was doing given the constraints. Four battalions of the RAF were being raised for North Bengal while one was being set up for Calcutta. Apart from the home department, the finance department was also pitching in with funds for the raising of these battalions. Bhattacharya said that there was no lack of communication between the Army and the state government in the exchange of intelligence reports about the activities of the ISI and that the recent arrest of an ISI agent in central Calcutta had proved that the administration was moving in the right direction. The RPF had also decided to increase patrolling on the three bridges though the responsibility of maintaining the security on these spots remained with the government.