Police rapped over missing Pakistanis

kolkata: of the 588 pakistani nationals who landed in kolkata on tourist visas during the past 10 years, 233 failed to report to the police before their departure, as required under the law. quoting an intelligence branch report, a senior state government official conceded the possibility that they might have simply melted into the countryside or crossed over to neighbouring states.according to the ib report, the police are just not equipped to keep tabs on foreign nationals. all the 233 pakistanis are described as “missing� or “traceless� in the police files. prepared by the inspector general of the intelligence branch, the report blames the city police’s special branch for the failure to keep track of the 233 pakistani nationals. criticising the poor infrastructure of the ib and sb, the report states that both the branches have no proper mechanism to trace foreign nationals in the state. the report mentions that “it is not possible to keep tabs on foreign nationals because we depend only on human intelligence�. moreover, the report states that the sb remains bogged mainly in providing security to vips and collecting “political information�. this makes keeping track of the foreign nationals in the city “virtually impossible�. the report also mentions that kolkata is considered as a “soft target for foreign terrorists� who use the city as a safe passage to other states. “many of the untraced pakistani nationals may have moved to uttar pradesh, a hub for inter services international (isi) activities as perceived by the central intelligence bureau,� it states. the report has also questioned the proper use of the “secret fund�, which the ib and sb get for collecting information from the sources. “ib and sb needs a major revamp,� the report has suggested. when tnn contacted kolkata police commissioner sujoy chakraborty, he said: “the intelligence report is a confidential one. it would not be fair on my part to share its contents.�