Mumbai, June 17: Maharashtra’s anti-terrorism squad will be free of the “dual control” of the Mumbai police chief and the state force’s overall boss after a government-appointed panel recommended a unified command for smoother response to strikes like 26/11.

The ATS would report to the newly created post of director-general of police, special operations, according to a summary of the Ram Pradhan Committee’s recommendations tabled in the legislature yesterday.

In the action-to-be-taken report (ATR), the committee said it had found that the dual control was “not working smoothly”. The reference was possibly to what sources described as a clash of jurisdictions in an arrangement where the Mumbai police chief supervises ATS investigations into terror strikes in the city while the state police boss handles those outside.

The committee said it “recommends that the government should reiterate that normally all terrorist attack cases in Mumbai city as well as rest of Maharashtra should be investigated by the ATS alone unless otherwise decided by the government”.

Another suggestion by the committee, part of the 26 it made, was ATS units should be created in all police commissionerates outside Mumbai too.

The call for a unified command also comes in the wake of last month’s embarrassment before a special court on organised crime.

While the crime branch claimed that Indian Mujahideen ideologue Saddik Shaikh was involved in the July 11 trains blasts, the ATS said it had found no evidence of his involvement in the 2006 serial bombing. Shaikh was later formally discharged in the case.

On the suggestion to free the ATS from dual control, a government statement said the recently created post of DG, special operations, would be in “overall charge” of special operations, including the anti-terrorism squad. “The issue of dual control will not remain.”

The government has promoted former Pune police commissioner Jayant Umranikar as director-general of police and named him DG, special operations, which would include both anti-Naxalite and anti-terror operations.

Umranikar confirmed that the ATS as well as officers involved in anti-Maoist operations would report to him. “Formal orders are yet to be issued since the ATR was tabled just yesterday,” the 1973-batch IPS officer said.