In the wake of a recent controversy over celebrated actor and dancer Sudha Chandran being grilled at the airport for her prosthetic limb, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on Thursday decided to set up panels at each of the CISF-secured civil airports that will work towards addressing travel-related issues of differently-abled passengers.
“While there will be an “increased focus” on sensitising security personnel for handling such travellers,” the CISF said, adding that it wants to “improve” their processes, without compromising on the “required security standards”.
The decision was taken at the end of a day-long conference organised by the airports guarding force with an agenda to minimise the hassles faced by such passengers during pre-embarkation security checks.
The meeting was chaired by CISF Director General M A Ganapathy and had representatives from about 150 disability rights NGOs, airports security body the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the Ministry of Civil Aviation and CISF security chiefs of all the 64 airports under the force’s cover.
Ganapathy on Thursday said that the CISF is “committed to ensure hassle-free security checks for persons with disabilities, while maintaining the required security standards.”
“The CISF is a world-class force committee to passengers and airport safety. We are working out everything so that without compromising security we can give maximum benefits to the passengers who are our guests,” he said.
The DG CISF said that the force also plans to replicate the “swarnim sewa” facility that is currently operational for passengers at the Hyderabad airport, at other such civil aviation facilities under its control.
Under the “Swarnim sewa” facility, senior citizens, differently-abled, first-time fliers, pregnant women and other such category of passengers are provided special assistance by CISF personnel during entry and exit at airports.
Another senior aviation security officer said, “While the guidelines issued by the CISF make clear that passengers with special needs, donning artificial limbs and on wheelchairs need to be frisked with all due respect and courtesy, some stray incidents do take place where passengers allege ther were not treated well by the security personnel.”
On October 23, Chandran shared her ordeal in a video and posted the same on Instagram. In the caption, she said, “Totally hurt ….each time going thru this grill is very very hurting….hope my message reaches te state Nd central govt authorities….and expecting a prompt action ….. (SIC)”
Issuing an apology, the CISF had said, “We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience caused to Ms. Sudhaa Chandran. As per protocol, prosthetics are to be removed for security checks only under exceptional circumstances. We will examine why the lady personnel concerned requested Ms. Sudhaa Chandran to remove the prosthetics. We assure Ms.Sudhaa Chandran that all our personnel will be sensitised again on the protocols so that no inconvenience is caused to travelling passengers.”
The current security guidelines for frisking differently-abled passengers, their equipments like wheelchairs, artificial limbs and others were brought in by the BCAS following the 2016 Somalia blast where a passenger in wheelchair was suspected to have carried out a blast in the aircraft after he tricked security at the Mogadishu airport.
(With pti inputs)
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