Giving rewards key to getting intelligence

HYDERABAD: Even as the state government on Friday placed under suspension two police officers and transferred one in the wake of Wednesday''s assassination attempt on Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, there are more officials who hold overall responsibility for ensuring foolproof intelligence, especially with respect to security to the chief minister.
As per the AP Police Manual, those responsible for ensuring complete protection to the chief minister are additional DGP (intelligence), the superintendent of police of the range in which the CM is present -- in this case Rayalaseema range, the respective district superintendent of police -- in this case the Chittoor SP, the additional superintendent of police (administration) of the respective district, the deputy superintendent of police (intelligence) -- in this case from Chittoor, the inspector on duty with the bomb disposal squad and the CM''s chief security officer on duty at the time of the incident.
At present, the additional DGP (intelligence) post is held by A Shiv Shankar, the Chittoor SP was Naveen Chand, who was suspended on Friday, while the chief security officer on duty was P Umapathy.
Even as the government began a crackdown of sorts on the police officials it found ''responsible'' for the security lapses on Wednesday, questions are being asked within the police department on why it failed in gathering the necessary intelligence that could have prevented the attempt on the chief minister''s life.
More disturbing are the murmurs doing the rounds within the police department that the funds called Service Reward Amount, meant for intelligence gathering, are not being used properly.
Had those responsible for using the SR Amount spent it well, the attack on the Chief Minister might have been prevented, intelligence sources said, adding each district gets more than Rs 3 lakh a month towards SR Amount.
However, in most cases, the SR Amount is misused as there is no need for the officers to account for the money. Using the money in a proper way depends on the individual officer''s interest and capacities.
Only in Telangana, the SR Amount is utilised properly in collecting the information about People''s War activities, the source said. The source also said that additional money for ''unaccounted spending'' is received during elections and other such occasions by the police.