Airports in India: Security air pockets

An escalated threat perception at Indian airports in the wake of the Pathankot attack notwithstanding, the security of eight of India’s airports that are categorised as ‘hyper-sensitive’ and another 19 airports deemed to be ‘sensitive’ from a security standpoint are currently not being handled by the Central Industrial Security Force’s (CISF) Aviation Security Group, the only specialised force handling aviation security in the country.

These include airports at Jammu and Kashmir and the North-Eastern state of Mizoram, where the security cover is provided by the state police with the support of the Central Reserve Police Force and the India Reserve Battalion, while the rest of these airports are simply manned by the local police.
Worrying still is proposal to cut down the CISF deployment at airports, which goes counter to an earlier Committee of Secretaries’ decision that the airport security at all airports needs to be handed over to the CISF in a phased manner. Currently, the CISF’s Aviation Security Group handles the security of 59 airports in the country — 53 of them operated by the state-owned Airports Authority of India and another 6 joint venture and private airports.
To Read the News in Full20/01/16 Indian Express