With Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh becoming union territories, the ministry of home affairs will once again be toying with the idea of handing over the security of Srinagar, Leh and Jammu airports to the Central Industrial Security Force.
The MHA has been keen to hand over security of all airports across the country to one dedicated force for better intelligence sharing and improved response during the time of a crisis.
The government has fixed October 31 as the date of bifurcation of the state into union territories. Once Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh become union territories, they will come under the administrative control of the Union government.
The security arrangements at Srinagar, Leh and Jammu airports get special focus because of their vulnerability to terror threats from militant groups operating in the Valley. The Srinagar airport particularly has been vulnerable to threats from terror groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, looking for high value targets to cause maximum damage.
The CISF is presently guarding 59 out of 98 operational airports in the country, while the rest of the airports are still with the state police or India Reserve Battalions. The Jammu, Leh and Srinagar airports are not under the exclusive charge of the CISF. It is the CRPF and the state police which have jointly been handling airport security till now. While the inner security layer is of the state police, the CRPF has been at the periphery at the Srinagar airport.
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Srinagar, along with Leh and Jammu, are considered sensitive airports, and a multi-layered security cover has been the need of the hour. But with Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh being declared as union territories, the revised security plan for the airports may once again factor in the possibility to give the CISF a bigger role.
Reviewing the security at airports is already underway as the government is carrying out a phased exercise to hand over all airports in the country to one central force, which is the CISF. It may be recalled that the MHA had moved a detailed note for consideration of the cabinet committee on security in 2018, saying the CISF is the dedicated force for airport security and should be given the task of handling airport security across the country since it has been trained specially for handling anti-terror operations at airports. The CISF has quick reaction teams which are fully trained to handle threats at airports in the quickest time possible, the MHA had said.
It was after the 1999 Kandahar Hijacking incident that the then Union government, under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, decided to hand over airport security to a central security force and the CISF was tasked with the job for the first time. In 2000, the CISF took over the airport at Jaipur, and since then it has 59 airports under its charge, which are likely to increase in the coming days.