Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: With the present RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) chief, KC Verma, due to retire on January 31 next year, the government has reportedly given a go ahead to SK Tripathi as the new chief, highly placed sources have revealed..
Earlier sources had said that AB Mathur, Anand Arni - both Special Secretaries in the RAW - and Ajit Lal, Special Director with the Intelligence Bureau (IB), are in the race for the top job in the country’s primer external intelligence agency.
It is also been reported that Tripathi’s name was endorsed by the outgoing chief Verma himself.
There was a move earlier also to shift the present RAW chief Verma to National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), formed in 2004, a month before he was officially set to retire so that the present Aviation Research chief Sanjeev Tripathi could take over his place at RAW. However, the government had changed its mind then.
AB Mathur and Anand Arni presently hold important posts in the external intelligence agency and Ajit Lal is presently number three in the IB set up after Nachal Sandu, the next director of the internal intelligence organisation who is set to take over on Janurary 1, 2011.
A 1974 batch IPS officer from Himachal Pradesh, Lal is an expert on Northeast affairs. All of them are well respected in the intelligence community.
