Union home ministry’s special task force on state bifurcation, headed its security advisor K Vijay Kumar, continued its exercise of eliciting opinions from serving and retired IPS officers on law and order for the second day on Wednesday.
The committee received opinions on the division of local, district and zone-level police personnel, sharing of assets, possibility of resurgence of Naxalism and growth of terrorism post-division.
Those who met the team included former DGP Pervaram Ramulu, former CBI director K Vijayarama Rao, former DG KR Nandan, DGP B Prasada Rao, Hyderabad police commissioner Anurag Sharma and IPS officers Harish Gupta and E Damodar.
According to one officer, division of police presented no problem since the personnel were recruited under local, district and zone-level and the same setup could more or less continue.
All Telangana IPS officers could be absorbed in Telangana state since there are more vacancies than officers.
As far as APSP battalions are concerned, personnel would continue at their present posting unless they seek an option to move to their native state. A separate forensic science laboratory could be set up in Andhra state with the staff working at regional cetnres at Visakhapatnam and Tirupati.
Greyhounds is a force formed by personnel taken on deputation from other wings of the police department and they could be reverted, a senior IPS officer who gave his opinion to Vijaya Kuamr told Express. Sharing of Octopus staff too should not be a problem because they are only a couple of hundred, he said.
Vijaya Kumar also elicited opinions on how well the police are equipped to deal with law and order problems after division. Some officers told him that since the police in Telangana dealt with law and order problems during the separate state agitation, they would have no problem in facing any new challenge.
The fear of resurgence of Naxalism is unfounded because Maoism is disappearing in Andhra Pradesh, particularly in Telangana region, some officers told Vijaya Kumar. There has been no fresh recruitment by Maoists in Telangana and those in the movement are getting older as revealed by a Maoist who has been arrested in Medak district recenlty, they said.
As regards terror strikes, the police force is now better equipped to deal with them, having succeeded in arresting even IM operatives. As there have been no communal clashes in the recent past, it could be assumed that they are things of the past, said one officer.
“There should be at least a few incidents of attack on Seemandhra people to think that there might be attacks in future,” the officer said and saw no reason why the Central government should try to drive a wedge between people of the two regions by taking over law and order responsibility in Hyderabad.