The friction between the two officers started immediately after the appointment of Mohanty, then DGP (Law and Order), as head of Octopus. A 1975-batch officer, Mohanty is three years junior to DGP Yadav and the state police chief reportedly was not too pleased with the decision to keep Octopus independent of him.

There is another catch in the seniority issue. Mohanty is empanelled with the Government of India as DG, while Yadav is not, making him junior to Mohanty.

In the bad blood between the two officers, Octopus continues to bleed. The urgency to have it up and running is not lost in a state that saw two major bomb blasts in its capital last year — the Mecca Majid blast on May 18, followed by the twin blasts on August 25. While by then the government had already started scouting for personnel in various police wings for the anti-terror unit, Octopus has since remained in a state of limbo:

• It has a full-fledged DGP heading it but except for a DIG-rank officer and six assistant commandants, no personnel has been recruited. The government order issued on its formation in October 2007 sought to recruit 1,600 personnel.

• None of the special units that were to be part of Octopus, like intelligence-gathering cells, counter-terrorism squads etc, is in place.

• Octopus was supposed to receive funds from the Andhra Police to make it fully operational, but it remains woefully short on resources. Recently, while DGP Yadav attended a budget meeting, DGP Mohanty went separately and impressed upon the government to release Rs 9 crore for the organisation.

... contd.