The Union home ministry has quietly set up new intelligence-gathering centres at Srinagar, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Mumbai and Kolkata to gather information about suspected terrorist activities in these places.

These centres, which will function in parallel with the existing Intelligence Bureau and state intelligence apparatus in these cities, will report directly to the joint task force set up in the IB headquarters in New Delhi as recommended by the Kargil Review Committee.

The task of these centres is not to engage terrorists in direct combat, but to spy on them and gather information that can help prevent terrorist offences.

The centres were set up after the home ministry realised that it was not enough to combat terrorism with guns alone, and that the intelligence coming through the existing channels was not specific enough.

The joint task force, which has members from the defence forces, paramilitary forces, intelligence agencies, and state police forces, will critically examine the inputs generated by these new centres and react quickly, alerting the state police forces concerned and giving them well-thought-out action plans to deal with the problems.

Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and Indore are among the other cities likely to get such centres soon as the home ministry suspects that activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India and other extremist outfits in these places provide shelter to terrorists.

The officers deputed to these centres belong to the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing, and some paramilitary forces who have developed expertise in intelligence gathering.