The Centre is rushing a high-level official team to Afghanistan on Monday to assess the security situation there after latest intelligence reports pointed out new and “serious” threats to Indian installations in that country in the wake of Pervez Musharraf’s exit as President of Pakistan last week.

The team, led by ITBP Additional D G Ranjit Sinha, will visit Kabul and the four other cities where India has consulates — Herat, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar — to assess the threat perception and suggest ways to strengthen the security apparatus in these cities, Home Ministry sources said.

The Indian Embassy and consulates, as also some other installations in Afghanistan, are being guarded by about 400 jawans of the ITBP, which have been frequent targets of militant groups operating in Afghanistan.

In the bloodiest attack on Indian interests so far, four Indian nationals, including two high-ranking officials of the Indian Embassy, were killed in a bomb blast just outside the Embassy in Kabul last month. After this, the Government decided to upgrade security around the embassy. Around 100 more jawans of the ITBP will be deployed in Afghanistan.

The team led by Ranjit Sinha is scheduled to leave for Afghanistan next month to review the security arrangements for the four consulates, two of which — in Mazar-e-Sharif and Heart — are completely dependent on the Afghan Police for their security. The ones in Kandahar and Jalalabad have only 10 ITBP jawans for security.

In view of the “serious” intelligence inputs coming in from Afghanistan, the Government has decided to rush the team immediately, sources said. Intelligence inputs have indicated that a number of Pakistani militant groups operating on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border were feeling quite emboldened by the exit of Musharraf, who had done a good job of reining in the extremist elements in his country.

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