The primary counter-terrorist task force of India, National Investigation Agency aka NIA has opened its branch office in Ahmedabad. The place has been allotted at BSNL office on SG Highway, just a few metres from the Gujarat ATS office. Police sources said SSP Dhruman Nimbale, a 2010 batch Punjab batch IPS officer who hails from Gujarat has been put in charge of the branch.
More than five cases of Gujarat related to alleged terror activities, including Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN), drug seizures which have a direct or an indirect link to terror activities and hijacking are currently being probed by NIA.
IPS officer Dhruman Nimbale, who was in the news following frequent transfers as SSP in various districts of Punjab, was moved to the NIA in July 2022. Nimbale has seen 18 transfers in eight years and is known as an expert against illegal mining.
The Gujarat Branch of NIA has already started calling on police officials and police personnel who had applied for posting in NIA. Officers and police personnel posted in NIA get security allowances in addition to their pay scale. A top police officer said, “Many senior police officers have applied for posting in NIA branch at Ahmedabad.”
NIA was formed in December 2008 after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Its headquarters is in New Delhi and it had 12 branch offices in the country, before the Gujarat branch. These include branches in Jammu, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Raipur, Ranchi, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Kolkata.
Gujarat is a border state that shares both land and sea border with Pakistan. There have been instances of Gujarat ATS having intercepted boats from Pakistan and Iran carrying large quantities of drugs.
