Thiruvananthapuram: The government has given the supervisory responsibility for handling the state industrial security force (SISF) personnel inside the Secretariat to deputy commissioner of police (law and order) Divya Gopinath by giving her the additional charge of commandant of the force.
Surprisingly, IG and city police commissioner Balram Kumar Upadhyaya has been kept out of any intervention regarding Secretariat security, which means that the DCP would double up as DCP (law and order) as well as SISF commandant, taking instructions from multiple seniors regarding secretariat security and law and order that is differentiated by a thin line.
State police chief Loknath Behera said that the charge would only be temporary until a new commandant is posted as the police is facing shortage of officers. “The DCP has also been given charge of commandant of SISF. We don’t have enough people, so till a new commandant is posted in January, the DCP will hold the charge,” Behera said.
TOI had earlier reported about how the deployment of SISF personnel, originally meant “for providing sufficient security coverage to vital institutions under both public and private sectors, like dams, power plants, banks, etc, on payment basis” would create confusion over Secretariat security. The decision to deploy SISF was taken after recent protests against the government, in which the protestors entered the Secretariat compound many times.
Even though SISF has been deployed in the Secretariat, a proper security plan and the positioning of the personnel are yet to be finalized. “The deployment should be in such a manner that armed SISF personnel should be positioned outside the Secretariat building, like it is done in crucial central government ministries in New Delhi. But there are also demands for deploying SISF personnel immediately outside the offices of key officials like the chief secretary, citing security threat,” secretariat sources said.
However, the state police chief said that there would be no interference from the police in the deployment of SISF personnel. “We will not interfere in such matters. It is for the SISF commandant to decide on who should be posted where inside the Secretariat,” he said.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that the chief secretary has also sought an explanation from police on charges that he was not attended to by the police officials present inside the Secretariat compound when media gathered around him up when the fire incident broke out in the Secretariat. However, police sources said that the limited available police personnel were engaged in removing BJP state president K Surendran and party activists from the Secretariat premises.