Chidambaram security beefed up

Delhi police are giving clear passage to Home Minister P Chidambaram and deploying police on his route when he travels by road.

Delhi police are giving clear passage to Home Minister P Chidambaram and deploying police on his route when he travels by road.

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This is part of a host of measures put in place to enhance the minister’s security in the wake of threat inputs and the volatile security scenario.

A VIP route is put in place whenever the President or the Prime Minister travels. A clear passage — when traffic is not stopped but traffic lights are put on blink mode — is provided for the Vice-President and Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Chidambaram is being provided the same.

Sources confirmed the police had started providing “route facilitation” for the minister — a decision taken at the highest level and kept under wraps.

The sources said there was increased police presence — local and traffic police, armed guards and police control room vans — on the minister’s route.

Security around the minister’s official residence, too, has been beefed up, with “trained commandos to handle emergency situations” posted there.

Chidambaram, who has come to symbolise the security establishment’s visible “hard line” against terror groups and the Naxalite menace, is believed to be one of the most threatened individuals in the country.

However, he has consistently refused to get his security cover upgraded. Although entitled to Z+ security cover, the highest possible, because he holds a crucial cabinet post.

Chidambaram has repeatedly made it clear that he is happy with the single armed guard that he has been provided under the Y category.

A home ministry official said he was not aware of the police adopting revised security norms for him. “I do not think the minister is aware,” he said.