BHUBANESWAR, JAN 28: How effective is the police intelligence in Orissa? If one goes by the records and the version of the Director General of Police, B B Panda, in the aftermath of the gruesome killings of the Australian missionary and his two sons at Manoharpur in Keonjhar district, it is in a shambles.Cornered, the intelligence wing in the police, however, feels differently. ``We are more sinned against than sinning,'' was how a top police officer in the intelligence wing summed up the attack on his outfit.According to him, ``somebody is trying to cover his lapses'' by shifting the blame ``on us''. The intelligence has been correctly ``anticipating'' things and ``faithfully'' reporting the same to the state government but something is ``wrong'' somewhere.The intelligence wing has taken a severe beating ever since the R Udaygiri carnage where two undertrial prisoners were dragged out of the jail by blood thirsty mob and burnt to death right in front of the police station on December 8. The RevenueDivisional Commissioner (RDC), southern range, blamed it squarely on the intelligence stating that the district administration was never tipped off about the public fury. But the fact remains that the district collector and superintendent of the police of Gajapati district were personally present to take the public warning about the outcome of government apathy just the day before the heinous crime was perpetrated.Coming to the Manoharpur incident where the Australian missionary was torched to death along with his two innocent sons, admittedly it was the result of the failure of the police intelligence in the words of DGP Panda.His colleagues in the intelligence department, however, maintain that they had categorically briefed the state government about the activities of Dara Singh, the culprit number one in the incident. Not only Singh was a notorious anti-social in the area but also he was terrorising the minorities for long. The police as well as several other persons, disgusted with Singh'sactivities, had reportedly petitioned Chief Minister JB Patnaik to tame him, but to no effect.Singh, suspected to be a Bajrang Dal activist on the basis of his donning saffron coloured clothes, had reportedly built a large following among the ``mahanta'' tribes in Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj districts. The Home Deprtament was, at one stage, processing a file to book him under the National Security Act which never materialised. The intelligence wing had also sought a report on him from Keonjhar district, but nothing came as the district was going without the superintendent of police for nearly two months.
