The Home Ministry has withdrawn X-category security of 24 VIPs

NEW DELHI: As part of its comprehensive review and rationalisation of the VIP security system, the home ministry has withdrawn X-category security cover of over two dozen individuals, including former Chief Justice of India Y K Sabharwal. It also reduced the number of personal security officers (PSOs) available to those remaining under this category from three to two. Others in X-category whose security cover was withdrawn include former MPs Govinda and Anwar Hussain, UP politician D P Yadav, two Delhi-based journalists and some local leaders from different northeastern states. Shoaib Iqbal (MLA from Matia Mahal in Delhi) will also lose his security cover from next month. Sources in the home ministry said against the current practice of having three PSOs (one round-the-clock), the remaining X-category protectees (nearly 50) will now get two PSOs. Similar trimming will take place in the Y and Z-category list in due course so that more police personnel are available for actual policing in the Capital, they added. Though other categories of protectees have not been touched as of now, there is a proposal to scale down the security cover of former home minister Shivraj Patil, National Commission of Scheduled Castes chairperson Buta Singh, former foreign minister Natwar Singh and Lok Janashakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan among others. Besides withdrawing the security cover of over two dozen individuals, it was also recently decided to ask states to disengage central paramilitary force (CPMFs) personnel who were wrongfully diverted for VIP security. The ministry will soon write to states in this regard. Sources said the ministry, meanwhile, has directed all states to observe the principle of reciprocity in extending security to nearly 400 central protectees of all categories.An official said while the Centre took care of security of state-level protectees while they were in Delhi, the states had often been found lacking in according security to central protectees commensurate with their security categorisation. According to guidelines, no central protectee can retain his Delhi-based PSO beyond 72 hours while on an outstation trip. The PSO is thereafter required to report back to Delhi, leaving the onus of protecting the VIP on the state police.