The elite Special Protection Group tasked with protecting the prime minister has landed in controversy over the sequence of events that led to the security breach during Narendra Modi's visit to poll-bound Punjab.
While the home ministry is mulling action against police officers who were directly responsible for the security lapses and for sanitising the route in the state, it isn't just the state police that is responsible for securing the prime minister's travel within the country. Central agencies like the Intelligence Bureau and SPG are responsible for threat intelligence analysis on a regular basis. Their mandate is to share these inputs with states during any movement, even as the SPG is in charge of proximate security to the Prime Minister.
On Thursday, the home ministry constituted a committee to enquire into the lapses in security arrangements during Modi’s visit to Ferozepur in Punjab on November 5.
"The security lapse led to the exposure of the VVIP to grave security risk," said the home ministry. The three-member committee will be led by Sudhir Kumar Saxena, Secretary (Security) Cabinet Secretariat and includes Balbir Singh, Joint Director in Intelligence Bureau, and S. Suresh, Inspector General in SPG. The committee is advised to submit the report at the earliest.
The twin agencies, SPG and IB, are red-faced over the incident and responsibility is already being shifted from one agency to another, and the central and state governments. Sources said the central intelligence agency, IB, passes on threat inputs to the SPG, which is then required to take a final call on the PM's travel route and itinerary. Even during election rallies, the SPG is in charge of proximate security to the prime minister, which is called the close protection team (CPT), and acts as the first line of defence, said an intelligence official. Other central agencies coordinate with the state police to beef up security arrangements further as part of the peripheral security, whenever the prime minister is travelling to places where the threat perception is high, either due to insurgent or Maoist activities or protests and blockades. The peripheral security consists of central paramilitary forces and state police besides the use of high-end technology for surveillance and detecting possible security threats by the SPG and other agencies.
"When the threat perception is high, it is monitored at the highest level in the home ministry," said a senior security official.
But this time, the lapse seems to be all-encompassing, resulting in a blame game between the Centre and the Congress-ruled state. On Thursday, a group of former police officers, led by P.C. Dogra, former DGP Punjab, and Praveen Dixit, former DGP Maharashtra, wrote to the president requesting immediate action in the "gravest...intentional and planned security lapse by the Punjab government".
In their letter, the former IPS officers accused the state government of being hand-in-glove with the protestors, which displayed a ''shameful collusion of the state machinery'' to embarrass and harm the prime minister. As the state shares its border with Pakistan, the IPS officers said it is a matter of immediate concern as recent IED blasts in Ludhiana shows the high threat perception.
''Punjab is preparing for elections and various senior leaders from other parties are also going to visit Punjab. It is the duty of the state machinery to ensure security of all the leaders,'' they said in the letter.
However, for a security lapse as huge as the prime minister's, the dust may not settle down with action against state police officials alone. Accountability, if fixed, may also see some changes in central agencies handling VVIP security in days to come.
Incidentally, this isn't the first time the spotlight is on the SPG during the BJP tenure. When the new NDA regime took over after a 10-year-long UPA rule, there was a feeling within a section of the security establishment that the loyalties of some of the SPG men might remain with the earlier regime. An overhaul of the SPG took place at the top when its then chief, K. Durga Prasad, a highly capable 1981 batch IPS officer, who had served as chief of Andhra Pradesh's elite Greyhounds, was removed in 2014 while he was still in Kathmandu in the middle of Modi's Saarc visit. Though his tenure was over, he was continuing to hold charge till his successor was appointed. The midnight orders during his travel with the PM had led to questions being asked about the sudden decision.
A fortnight after Prasad was removed, 1989 batch Gujarat cadre officer Vivek Srivastava was handpicked for the job. However, his tenure also did not last a full year and he was replaced within 15 months by Arun Kumar Sinha, a 1987 batch IPS officer of Kerala cadre, in March 2016.
The SPG also courted controversy in 2018 when Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the then SPG chief had to quit because he had refused to accept a list of officers handpicked by the RSS, a charge quickly denied by the government. The home ministry's move to clarify the matter at that time was unusual given the fact that it does not elaborate on issues concerning organisations like SPG, which have critical responsibilities. The home ministry called the SPG a "professional organisation which takes its task of protecting serving prime ministers, former prime ministers, and their families entrusted to its security very seriously and in the highest professional spirit".
The tenure of the incumbent SPG Chief, Arun Kumar Sinha, ends in July.
