Mumbai:
The Mumbai Police is banking heavily on the humble informer or khabri its oldest and most reliable source of intelligence inputs to avoid law-and-order problems during the eagerly awaited India-Sri Lanka match.
Senior officials in the force said they have asked the informer network to be alert and asked them to relay any information they may come across relating to a possible terror threat, groups intending to cause mischief and even bookie dealings during the World Cup final.
"Human intelligence is the best way of collecting information.
Even if we get inputs from the Centre, we need to corroborate them with our local sources. We have got in touch with the informers to avoid any law-and-order problems on the day of the final and we sound local information from them.
We have also asked them to keep their ears open about bookie dealings because of the heavy betting expected for this match," said a senior police officer from South Mumbai, requesting anonymity.
Citing alerts during Ganeshotsav and Navratri, he added that inputs from other sources and even from intelligence agencies are often hard to verify.
"They rely a lot on phone tapping and technology, but we have solved so many cases using our khabris. Their inputs will be very important on the day of the match."
An informer from Dongri, who has been active since 1992, said, "A few policemen called up many khabris in the area and asked for inputs related to the match.
They told us that there is a possibility of the World Cup venue becoming a terror target and that they did not want to take chances. While most of the police force will focus on South Mumbai, they have asked us to keep a tab on other areas."
Several informers in the central suburbs, too, confirmed that they had received calls from police officers. Mumbai Police Spokesperson DCP Rajkumar Vhatkar, however, refused to comment on the issue.