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CISF personnel to be deployed at airports

Kamla Bora in Jaipur

The government of India has begun deploying Central Industrial Security Force personnel at airports to beef up security.

Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Chaman Lal Gupta yesterday formally deployed CISF personnel at the Sanganer airport in Jaipur, the first airport in the country to be thus manned.

Gupta told journalists that all Indian airports would have their own security systems within the next two years, all of them of a uniform pattern. The CISF personnel deployed at the airports would be passenger-friendly and some would be taught foreign languages to assist foreign tourists, he said.

Disclosing the 'fool proof' security arrangements made at the airports after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines aircraft last December, the minister said a three-point security check system has been evolved under which passengers are frisked at the entrance, in the security zone and at the ladder.

Commandos in plain clothes are being deployed in flights with weapons on randomly selected routes.

He said surprise checks are being regularly conducted to ascertain the proper working of screenings and the X-ray machines at airports. Surprise inspections are also being carried out by security agencies at various airports within and outside the country.

The new security arrangements make it easy to immobilise an aircraft in an emergency.

The minister said the government was also considering establishing an independent civil aviation protection force, something like the Railway Protection Force.

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