Ashok Prasad has been appointed as special secretary (internal security), in the ministry of home affairs. Prasad is a cadre of the 1979 batch IPS of Andhra Pradesh.
He will be filling in the vacancy caused by Prakash Mishra, who was earlier appointed as director general of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). The appointments committee of the cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued Prasad’s order late on Wednesday night. The order issued by the ACC stated that “Prasad has been appointed with effect from the date of joining of the post and until further orders or up to the date of his superannuation on January 31, 2016.”
Prasad was in the race for the post of director of the intelligence bureau (IB) but eventually lost out to Dineshwar Sharma, who was preferred by the Modi administration considering his expertise on Kashmir and terrorism.
Anil Sinha, 1979 batch IPS of Bihar cadre, was appointed as director of the CBI while Dineshwar Sharma was made IB director and Rajinder Khanna as secretary of the country’s external spy agency R&AW.