Foolproof VIP security is a myth,” declared a senior police officer as he watched the thick cloud of dust pervading the area as the helicopter carrying Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao made a landing at the temporary helipad at the Singareni Thermal Power Plant at Jaipur in Adilabad district on December 25.
All the security personnel, including the rope party policemen and others who constitute security in close proximity of the VIP, flinched away from the dust thereby losing sight of the protectee for a few minutes.
“This is not an isolated incident,” continued the police officer as he tried to focus on the problem about which the government seems to have bothered least. “There is no end to our anxiety whenever we have to secure the area consisting of a temporary helipad,” he stated.
The problem would presumably have been addressed had the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy lived to see his orders being implemented in 2009. The former Chief Minister had ordered construction of permanent helipads at all mandal head quarters in the undivided Andhra Pradesh soon after he returned to power that year.
It was Rajasekhara Reddy who had initiated the trend of a chopper dry run a day before his visit to districts. The development had come in 2005 in the wake of his chopper straying from its course to Utnoor where he was to attend a Rythu Sadassu.
In the last general election (held in the undivided State), the helicopter carrying Telugu Desam Party (TDP) N. Chandrababu Naidu landed right near the venue of the election meeting at Kagaznagar where thousands of people had gathered. This was in breach of given guidelines with regard to VIPs election campaign involving heli-hopping.
Another incident related to safety of VIPs involves Mr. Chandrashekhar Rao himself when he was to land at come to Jodeghat on October 8 earlier this year. In what constitutes breach of security a helicopter on dry run arrived the previous day at the remote Jodeghat Village without the knowledge of district police involved in VIP security.
