GUWAHATI, Nov 5 - The Assam Government is yet to send a formal request to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take over the investigation of the case relating to the killing of five persons by unidentified gunmen in Dhola in Tinsukia district in the evening of November 1. However, officers of the agency carried out preliminary investigation in the incident site and sent their report to the headquarters of the NIA.
Highly placed sources in the NIA told The Assam Tribune that in most cases, the requests to investigate major cases come from the concerned State Governments. But in case of the Dhola incident, no formal request has yet been sent by the Assam Government to take over the case.
However, sources said that the NIA can take over cases even without the request of the concerned State Governments. Sometimes, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) directs the NIA to take over investigation of certain cases and the concurrence of the State Government is not required. On a few cases, the NIA on its own, decides that the agency should take over certain cases and writes to the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking permission to do so and on such incidents, cases are registered after receiving the permission from the MHA.
On the visit of a team of NIA to Dhola, sources said that a team of officers led by the Superintendent of Police of Guwahati Branch of the NIA visited Dhola immediately after the incident and carried out a preliminary investigation. The team also met the family members of the victims. The team sent its report to the NIA headquarters. Sources refused to divulge the details of the report and said, �the report is now being analyzed in the headquarters of the NIA by senior officers. If we feel that we should take over the case, we will write to the MHA seeking permission to do so and the case will be registered if the MHA gives the green signal.� The NIA is likely to arrive at a decision in this regard by the end of this week.
Sources also said that teams of the NIA visit the place of occurrence whenever any major terrorist attack takes place in any part of the country to carry out preliminary investigations. �The basic idea is to keep the agency well informed about patterns of such attacks, which helps the agency to investigate the cases whenever necessary. Such preliminary investigations also keep the agency informed about the activities of the terrorists,� sources added.
