Journalism of Courage
An escalated threat perception at Indian airports in the wake of the Pathankot attack notwithstanding, the security of eight of India’s airports that are categorised as ‘hyper-sensitive’ and another 19 airports deemed to be ‘sensitive’ from a security standpoint are currently not being handled by the Central Industrial Security Force’s (CISF) Aviation Security Group, the only specialised force handling aviation security in the country.
These include airports at Jammu and Kashmir and the North-Eastern state of Mizoram, where the security cover is provided by the state police with the support of the Central Reserve Police Force and the India Reserve Battalion, while the rest of these airports are simply manned by the local police.
Worrying still is proposal to cut down the CISF deployment at airports, which goes counter to an earlier Committee of Secretaries’ decision that the airport security at all airports needs to be handed over to the CISF in a phased manner. Currently, the CISF’s Aviation Security Group handles the security of 59 airports in the country — 53 of them operated by the state-owned Airports Authority of India and another 6 joint venture and private airports.
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Currently, as against the required strength of 24,333 CISF personnel for manning the 59 Indian airports that are controlled by the CISF, the deployment is just 22,411. Proposals for the augmentation of CISF strength at 13 airports are also pending with the Ministry of Civil Aviation while similar proposals for another eight airports are hanging fire with the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security for approval. Government officials involved in the exercise said apart from the constraints on account of manpower shortages, the “high cost of deployment” of the industrial security force and the “low scale of operations” at many airports have rendered CISF deployment further unviable. Instead, a proposal to reduce CISF deployments and going in for state police or local police deployment at airports, he said, was also being actively considered.
The issue of CISF manpower apart, there are also a number of glaring gaps in the security architecture across the country’s smaller airports.
Cargo Security: This is a serious cause of concern at majority of airports as private security guards are deployed for access control duties and the involvement of multi agencies — security guards of the airport operators, security personnel of cargo handling agents and the CISF — creates gaps in the overall security architecture.
Deficiency of Security Gadgets: There is shortfall in Random Screening Equipment (X-BIS machines, hand-held metal detector, door frame metal detector and explosive trace detector), Communication Equipment (VHF, walkie-talkie and hands free), Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) equipment.
Installation of CCTV system does not exist at 6 airports — Dimapur, Jorhat, Lilabari, Silchar, Tezpur and Khajuraho — while full coverage of CCTV is not available at 33 airports — blind spots remain. Provision of digital video recording system for 30 days does not exist at 20 airports and the Video Analytic Features need to be activated at all airports
Dog Squads are not available at 6 airports: Coimbatore, Agra, Gwalior, Porbandar, Port Blair and Diu.
Counter Terrorist Contingency Plan (CTCP) by CISF at approach roads are available only at Delhi and Mumbai, something that needs to be put in place at 20 more international and “hyper-sensitive” airports.
The gaps are not restricted to just the smaller airports. During the course of a security review done at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on August 31, 2015, the Delhi Police is reported to have highlighted several grey areas in the security detail, including inadequate CCTV coverage; the jungle area around T-3 being marked as vulnerable from the security point of view and the private land of DIAL cited as having neither the boundary or fencing and nor being protected by guards. Added to this is the fact that clearing of shrubs and bushes was not being done on a regular basis and a proposal for ‘all weather machans’ has been pending with the airport operator, according to the recorded Delhi Police version.
Also, three vulnerable villages – Rangpuri, Shahbad Mohamadpur and Mehram
Nagar adjoining IGI Airport have been deemed as a looming security threat and the watch towers need to be placed at 300 metres distance, as against a gap of about a kilometre currently. Airport operator DIAL has countered some of these assertions by the Delhi Police on the outer periphery security detail, claiming that a Perimeter Intrusion Detection System has been made serviceable and that there are a total of 41 watch towers at IGI Airport that are more than the requirement mandated by BCAS (vide BCAS circular No.18/2002). All the watch towers, they claimed, are being manned by the CISF on a round-the-clock basis.
There are security gaps at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai too, according to a review report conducted in October 2015. The airport operator — Mumbai International Airport Ltd — has raised the issue of deployment of a total of 3,797 CISF personnel as against the sanctioned strength of 3,996. They have also placed a demand of additional 882 personnel for the domestic operations from terminal T2, which is pending approval from the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
The cargo operations inside the airport have also been flagged as another cause of concern. The cargo complex is accessed by more than 5,000 casual employees daily for their work, most of whom not having validated entry passes and an easy access to apron side. The issue of presence of slums in the vicinity of the airport area is another security threat. Major concentration of these 35 slum pockets is on the eastern side of the airport site area, particularly along the airport’s operational area boundary wall. There is also a hillock near the Runway 27-end of the airport, alongside the Mithi River, which overlooks the operational area of CSIA. The hillock is completely covered by slums with a clear view of airport operations and aircraft, making these a serious security concern. Currently, Mumbai Police and the CISF need to keep vigil on the slums on the hillock and ensure security of Airport operations.
Categorisation of airports on threat and risks
The categorisation of airports, on the basis of intelligence inputs as well as on threat and risk, has been done for the 98 airports across the country, with 26 deemed as ‘hyper-sensitive’, 56 bracketed as ‘sensitive’ and 16 as ‘normal’. The CISF was inducted into airport security as an aftermath of the Indian Airlines IC-814 hijacking on December 24, 1999, and the industrial security force was first inducted at Jaipur Airport on February 3, 2000.
Total 59 Airports under CISF cover
Hyper-Sensitive Airports: Amritsar, IGI Delhi, Jaipur, Varanasi, Lucknow, Agartala, Bagdogra, Guwahati, Imphal, Kolkata, Raipur, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Jodhpur, Ahmedabad.
Sensitive Airports: Agra, Bhopal , Chandigarh, Bhuj , Indore, Goa, Bhuntar, Nagpur, Kanpur, Vadodara, Shimla, Calicut, Udaipur, Cochin, Dehradun, Silchar, Coimbatore, Khajuraho, Mangalore, Dibrugarh, Tirupati, Dimapur,Trichy, Gaya, Thiruvananthapuram, Diu, Jorhat,Vizag, Lilabari, Tezpur, Patna, Shillong, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Aurangabad, Port Blair, Porbandar
Normal Airports: Gwalior, Madurai, Rajkot, Bhavnagar (Source: Ministry of Civil Aviation)
