The Hindu : New Delhi News : MPs lose security cover at residence

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 16, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

MPs lose security cover at residence

Devesh K. Pandey

Police now find the scheme not effective at the ground level

NEW DELHI: The Area Security Plan for deployment of security men at the official residences of Members of Parliament, which came into force in the wake of the terrorist attack on Parliament in December 2001, has been scrapped.

After the attack on Parliament, several MPs had expressed fear that militants could target their official residences. The authorities concerned then came up with a plan to set up a special team of armed Delhi Police personnel for deployment in areas where parliamentarians had been provided official accommodation.

The team of over 200 Delhi police personnel was to function in a way similar to the one set up for security in the diplomatic area in New Delhi and the police identified at least 10 residential complexes for deployment of the force.

These were located at South Avenue, North Block, Swarna Jayanti Sadan, Vitthalbhai Patel House on Rafi Marg, M.S. Flats near Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Western Court on Janpath and the flats near Nirman Bhavan. Armed personnel were deployed at strategic locations here.

After the attack

However, almost four years after the attack, senior police officers are now finding the scheme not effective at the ground level.

They found that though under the Area Security Plan police personnel were to remain deployed at the identified locations, they were being used for other purposes as well.

It came to light that they were employed by local police stations for their own work on informal basis.

In such a scenario, the team was unable to execute properly the task assigned to it.As a result, the Area Security Plan was scrapped.

Initially, most of the security personnel coming under the scheme were sent to police lines and the arms issued to them were deposited.

After a while, they were again called back, but this time they were attached to various police stations.

It is learnt that now most of them have been involved in other policing exercises like checking vehicles at temporary barricades across the district.

According to sources, while the Area Security Plan has been scrapped, no alternative plan is now in place for round-the-clock security of the parliamentarians' official accommodations.

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