Livemint:
Bhopal: Tuesday, 02 December 2014.
At 11.10am on
13 December 2001, Harish K., a member of Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee’s
Special Protection Group (SPG), was waiting in the porch of 7, Race Course
Road, the Prime Minister’s residence. Vajpayee was scheduled to leave for Lok
Sabha at 11.18am but Harish knew that the Prime Minister liked to be early. “He
came out at 11.14am and we wired all stations to get ready for Jupiter’s
movement,” he recalls. Jupiter was Vajpayee’s call name. That day, however,
instead of getting into the car, Vajpayee decided to wait for a few more
minutes before leaving. “At exactly 11.22am, the first shot rang out in
Parliament as it was stormed by the militants. I radioed control immediately to
find out what was happening and we stopped all movement.” Vajpayee never made
it to Parliament that day.
That was
exactly the kind of situation the SPG was prepared and trained for. The SPG,
which is responsible for not just scrutinizing but implementing every detail of
the Prime Minister’s security, now finds itself under the scanner following a
Right To Information (RTI) query filed by Jashodaben, the wife of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, and the subsequent change in the organization’s
leadership. K. Durga Prasad was stripped of his charge midway through Modi’s
tour of Nepal and replaced by Gujarat Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Vivek
Srivastav. Prasad says his term ended on 2 November (it did) and that he had
been told he would have to stay on till a replacement was found.
In her RTI
query, Jashodaben sought details of her security entourage and alleged some of
its members demanded special treatment, asking to be treated as guests. “I can
assure you no SPG man will ever ask for a cup of tea from his protectee. We
never break bread where we work,” says S. Subramanian, the founder-director of
SPG. As it turns out, Jashodaben’s security detail is actually sourced from
Gujarat Police though an SPG team had visited Gujarat after Modi’s swearing-in
on 26 May to assess the threat perception to her. According to reports, the
findings of the team were personally monitored by Prasad. “Sometimes the local
police is involved and the term is loosely used by them, but the SPG is a
specially trained proximate protection force,” says Subramanian.
How did it
begin?
The SPG was
conceived as a reaction. It was 1984 and the responsibility of the Prime
Minister’s security was the responsibility of the local police force. “State
police, municipality, everyone had some role to play; but there was no
co-ordination. So the systems were in place, but the buck stopped with no one,”
recalls Subramanian. After Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards
on 31 October 1984, the need was felt for one organization that would provide
what securitymen term “proximate” security to the Prime Minister.
Officers of
senior and junior ranks were recruited from the Indian Police Service (IPS),
Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and standard operating procedures were
laid down. This included everything from anti-sabotage checks, sanitizing of
venues and personal security details. “We consolidated the responsibility.
There was a person, the director-general, SPG, with whom the buck stopped,”
says Subramanian.
Today, nearly
three decades later, much of what Subramanian put into place remains. “Every
year, as SPG personnel are repatriated to their parent unit, the MHA (ministry
of home affairs) sends a vacancy list to these organizations. This is forwarded
to the different units who send a list of possible candidates,” explains
Harish, who was recruited from BSF and has guarded Vajpayee, H.D. Deve Gowda
and Manmohan Singh.
Apart from
being physically fit and mentally sharp, SPG recruits need to be younger than
35 years and have an unblemished service record. “It is a matter of great
prestige to be part of the SPG and more often than not it is professional pride
which makes us volunteer. Everyone knows the recruitment process is tough and
the job that follows even tougher; but then, success does not come easy,” says
Onkar Tiwari, who, too, was a part of both Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh’s
security entourage.
The
selection process
The first
stage of the selection process is an interview conducted by an inspector
general of police, or IG, two deputy IGs and two assistant IGs. The questions
range from current affairs to why the interviewee wants to join the SPG. This
is followed by a physical exam, a written test and a psychological evaluation.
According to Harish, it is not unusual for an entire batch to be rejected with
the process starting anew all over again.
“The relation
between a personal security officer and the protectee is akin to that of a
mother and a child. In times of danger, the mother will sacrifice herself to
save the child, and that is the ethic we looked for,” says Vijay Raman, former
special director-general of CRPF and a member of the founding SPG team.
The first
phase of SPG training is for three months and includes extensive lessons in
unarmed and armed combat, and a weekly test. Those who fail to make the grade
in training are transferred to the next batch. If they still fail to clear it,
then they are returned to the parent unit. Today, the SPG provides protection
to the current Prime Minister, his family members, the Gandhi family and
Vajpayee. Former prime ministers are provided security for a year after giving
up office; this is reviewed depending on threat perception.
Earlier this
year, Aseem Takyar, a Gurgaon resident, had filed an RTI application seeking
information on whether SPG recruits men only from a certain community. The
application was rejected by the Central Information Commission on the grounds
that SPG is exempt from having to provide any information.
“I tried to
argue that denying recruitment on grounds of religion is a human rights
violation, but my requests were not entertained,” says Takyar. The SPG men
interviewed for this story refused to answer the question. “I don’t have
anything to say about this,” said Tiwari.
But how
does one get to be part of the PM’s entourage?
“A cool and
calm demeanour, physical fitness, ability to think on your feet and being a
sharp shot are some of the qualities required to be a part of the PM‘s close
protection team,” says D.P. Tyagi, a former CISF commandant who was part of
Rajiv Gandhi’s entourage.
“Close
protection team probables are sent back for a further training period of three
months. Then they are assigned as understudies before they are elevated to the
main entourage,” says an SPG official who wanted to remain unidentified. Even
when on duty, SPG men have to report for physical training. “Every month we are
supposed to report for five training sessions. It’s non-negotiable,” says R.P.
Yadav, a former SPG officer from CISF.
The standard
uniform of an SPG member is either a safari suit or a blazer and tie. The men
are also trained to be polite and unobtrusive. There are detailed operational
procedures in place specifying everything from how many men will accompany the
PM when he alights from a car, to how many will be with him when on a dais. The
SPG also maintains a strict check on who is allowed to meet the Prime Minister
and who is not.
“It is not
enough that the Prime Minister is good friends with a person or the visitor is
a family member or a cabinet member. The SPG has complete authority to pick up
the phone and ask the Prime Minister directly if he wants to meet the visitor,”
says Raman.
SPG members,
including drivers, are rotated regularly. And if an SPG member goes for leave
longer than a certain number of days, it is not unusual for the local police to
carry out discreet enquiries as to his whereabouts.
“Physically,
it is a taxing job. A man should be able to act in a split second; the capacity
to think and react quickly is of the essence here. You need to know whether
people are euphoric or antagonistic at the visit of the Prime Minister,” says
Subramanian.
Harish
recalls a rally in Cuttack when someone from the audience threw a cloth ball at
Vajpayee. He stopped it with his hand.
On the job
The decision
to give SPG cover to former prime ministers was taken after the assassination
of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. After the election of Modi as PM in May, the SPG took
over his security immediately. Every event of his, be it election rallies or
state visits, sees an unprecedented security drill, including the deployment of
sharpshooters.
An SPG tenure
lasts for six years but extensions are not uncommon even though Subramanian
believes in frequent rotation, including a fixed two-year tenure for the director.
“The longer you stay, the more you take things for granted. There can be no
chinks in our armour if we are protecting the democratically elected head of a
country.”
Apart from
the prestige associated with being a part of the SPG, there are other perks,
too. Members are given allowances that take their pay up as much as 50%,
depending on the nature of deputation. Those who are involved in the
administrative section get a hike of 25%. “Foreign tours, a comfortable
lifestyle, good pay package, supportive seniors, these are the perks which make
it very difficult for a SPG official to adjust with their parent unit once the
tenure is over,” says Yadav.
Indeed,
stories of harassment at the hands of superiors in the parent unit and
punishment duties are common. This combined with the siren call of politics and
business means many former SPG men, including most of those Mint spoke to, end
up protecting CEOs, businessmen, and political leaders.
On the job,
SPG has had a significant measure of success, although there have been slips,
including, if media reports are to be believed, a recent one where an
individual who wasn’t supposed to be on the dias, shared the stage with PM Modi
during the swearing-in of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. Securitymen
are only human, explains Subramanian, resorting to a statement attributed to
English politician Oliver Cromwell.
All we can
do, he says, “is to trust in God and keep our powder dry.”
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