Apr 11, 2025 07:16 AM IST
Two senior officers from the Jharkhand cadre, Ashish Batra and Jaya Roy, were tasked to lead the extradition process of Tahawwur Rana
New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) team tasked two senior officers from the Jharkhand cadre — Ashish Batra and Jaya Roy — to lead the extradition process of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, from the United States, officials said on Thursday.
Batra, a 1997-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer from the Jharkhand cadre, is currently serving as the inspector general (IG) in NIA.He was deputed to the agency in 2019 for a five-year term, which was extended by two years until September 15, 2024by the ministry of home affairs. Before joining NIA, Batra was the IG of Jharkhand Jaguar, an anti-insurgency unit, from January 20, 2018. He also served as the spokesperson for the Jharkhand Police and held additional duties as IG Abhiyan, that conducts operations in Naxal areas of Jharkhand related to law and order.
He served as assistant superintendent of police in Bihar’s Jehanabad for three months, followed by superintendent of police in Koel Karo and Hazaribagh. Batra was also the city SP in Ranchi for 19 months and spent a year-and-a-half on the governor’s security detail.
Jaya Roy, a 2011-batch IPS officer from the Jharkhand cadre, currently serves as deputy inspector general in NIA. She was deputed to the agency in 2019 as superintendent of police for a four-year term, which has since been extended. Roy is best known for leading the team that cracked down on cybercriminals in Jamtara.
An IPS officer in Jharkhand, who has worked with Batra, called him a “hard task-master” and said that Batra would not stop at small successes, sharing an anecdote the officer said that if 6 out of 10 Naxalites managed to run away and 4 were caught, Batra would not stop to celebrate but rather look at how to catch the 6 people. Batra’s major success was to conduct a survey of Naxal property under UAPA act, the officer said.
Talking about Roy, the officer said that she was a doctor at AIIMS but left it to join IPS. Describing her as “professionally sound” the officer said that she assumed the office of SP in Jamtara when the situation was at its worst in Jharkhand and still managed to do a good job especially in cracking down on cyber criminals.
