Rediff On The NeT: Neither do half the capital's VIPs need security, nor are any of them really secure

Delhi VIPs's obtrusive security cover provides an assassin 10 to 15 minutes to execute his operation

It could be in the morning as you are rushing to office. Or it could be at noon when you step out for a bite. Else, it could be on your way back home in the evening.

But, every day, if you are a Delhiite, you will bump into him. There is no way you can avoid him, brother, no way.

Tall, slimly muscular and dressed in black dungarees, his finger ominously curling over the trigger of an AK-47 rifle or a German M-5 pistol as he watches half-frightened onlookers through narrowed eyes, he is as common a sight in the capital as the blotted khaki-and-white traffic cops there.

This is the Black cat commando, government-sent protector of VIPs -- the ultimate status symbol.

Not surprising these frequent sightings, considering the number of VIPS who have to have such high-grade security. As of 1997 March, there are 467 VIPs in the capital whose movements are guarded by more than 3,600 Delhi police and 2,672 central paramilitary personnel, entailing an expenditure of Rs 560 million every year.

"The world over the quantum of security is akin to threat perception, but in India this aspect is more academic and ceremonial," says noted lawyer Pran Nath Lekhi, who has been appointed amicus curiae in the Massey case (wherein an executive was beaten up on May 9 by the prime minister's security personnel), ''Security has largely become an operation of statistics -- who should be given how many gun-totting security personnel.''

The security cover, Lekhi said, was so open that a terrorist or assassin would get 10-15 minutes to execute his operation. ''By stopping commuters in an oppressive skein of traffic restrictions, which results in traffic jams on all sides, VIPs become sitting ducks for the assassins," he said. ''This security makes the general public insecure -- that too, without assuring the safety of the protege.''

All persons given security cover are not subject to the same threat perception. For instance, the security of the President and the vice-president is not the type which children and grandchildren of the serving prime minister and ex-PMs should get. ''A farce of the security perception is it is given even to the grandchildren of ex-PMs, though the Special Protection Group Act,1988 only talks of the prime minister,'' Lekhi points out.

About 3,000 Delhi policemen are deployed to provide cover for the prime minister and the President who belong to the ''Z'' category -- the highest security cover, with own dedicated personnel as the SPG and Presidential bodyguards. Similarly, the army chief is protected by a special force which is trained in VIP duties by the National Security Guard, the Air Force chief by IAF commandos and the Navy chief by the Marine Commando Force.

"The two most threatened persons today are Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestine President Yasser Arafat, but they do not have the security which the Indian prime minister or even some social climbers in the capital get," Lekhi says.

Similarly, British Premier Tony Blair and former prime minister John Major are under threat from the Irish Revolutionary Army. But an average Londoner is not inconvenienced because of the protection given to them. ''An important functionary needs security, but not an overdose of it. The right security is always unobtrusive. It is because of our skewed security perception that the Massey incident took place,'' Lekhi says.

The existing security arrangements, Lekhi observed, are causing law and order problems. Most police stations are 15 to 30 per cent understaffed. And on top of that, many are pulled off for VIP security, thus affecting policing law and order badly -- of the 54,000-strong Delhi police, almost 12,000 are round the year engaged in protecting and escorting the capital's less than 500 VIPs.

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