Modi appoints Balakot strategist as new RAW chief, Kashmir-Maoist expert as IB head

Both are IPS officers of the 1984 batch — Samant Goel belongs to the Punjab cadre and Arvind Kumar to the Assam-Meghalaya cadre.

North Block and South Block on Raisina Hill | Representational image | Photo: Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

New Delhi: Samant Goel, one of the key strategists of the Balakot air strikes, has been appointed the next chief of India’s external spy agency — Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) — while Arvind Kumar, a Maoists and Kashmir expert, has been made director of the Intelligence Bureau.

The appointments were made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Appointments Committee of the Cabinet.

Both are IPS officers of the 1984 batch, with Goel belonging to the Punjab cadre and Kumar to the Assam-Meghalaya cadre.

Who is Samant Goel

Prior to his appointment as the RAW chief, Goel was in charge of the operations desk of the external intelligence agency. It was during his tenure there that the Balakot air strikes were successfully planned and executed.

RAW had developed primary intelligence and selected probable targets for the February air strikes.

Another officer who had played a key role in the strikes was Special Secretary R. Kumar, who is also the in-charge of Pakistan and counter terrorism desks.

Known as RAW’s ‘operations man’, Goel had also handled the Punjab desk during its militancy era. He is known to be one of the dependable voices within the agency when it comes to issues connected with Pakistan.

Controversy during CBI infighting

Even as he kept a low profile, Goel’s name had cropped up during the CBI infighting that began in July last year and involved its former director Alok Kumar and special director Rakesh Asthana.

It was alleged that Goel had tried to dilute the Moin Qureshi money-laundering and corruption probe with the help of middlemen, and brothers Manoj and Somesh Prasad — who were taken into custody later in the Asthana bribery probe.

Maoist expert Arvind Kumar

Before he was picked the new IB chief, Arvind Kumar was handling the agency’s Kashmir desk. He is known within the IB ranks as an expert on Left-wing extremism.

At the height of the anti-Maoist operations, during the UPA II tenure, Kumar was in charge of the Bihar-Jharkhand-Chhattisgarh areas. He was the ‘key intelligence man’ looking after anti-terror operations in Jammu and Kashmir, in which over 700 terrorists were killed in the past three years. He was also responsible for the crackdown on terror-funding networks.