How Breach Occurs in VIP Security?

What they need is just one mole inside

Media is abuzz with news that the PM's security has just been breached. Only sometime back, tow women and a man were found loitering about in their car inside the PM's residence. In this article, Aziz Haider recounts his own experience when he was personally witness to breeches in VIP security time and again, during his stint with the Union Home Ministry.

The year was 1995! Narasimha Rao's minority government had completed 4 years and was readying itself for the oncoming polls in 1996. Rajeev Gandhi had become an assassin to LTTE attack only in the last Lok Sabha elections. Babri Masji had been demolished and country had seen large scale rioting and the Bombay blasts. Though the Al-Qaeda threat had not started by then, violence in Kashmir was at its peak. JKLF and Khalistan militants were frequent visitors to the Home Ministry offices at New Delhi's North Block to broker 'peace deals'. Ideally, the security should have been at peak but that was not to be.
My role in the North Block was to do varied jobs like media handling, speech writing, tour preparation and public handling for the Minister. Being part of the VIP entourage of the Union Home Minister, I still recount how our baggage was never checked, even at the airports across the country or while entering North Block, having offices of the Home Minister, Finance Minister, Home Secretary and top officials of CBI, IB and RAW. Of course, none could dare touch the Minister's baggage.
I am not pointing an accusing finger at anybody. But politicians being politicians, the country has seen some of the most dubious characters at the top jobs. The country's political situation today is such that any mafioso, with certain degree of planning and luck, can become an MP and aim forth for the highest chairs, including the Home Ministry. The integrity of all the staff too could never be ascertained as several of the political appointees belong to the Minister's constituency. Who would have dared to perform a security check on this staff, if the Minister willed that such and such person is to be appointed for his tenure.
There are countless incidents of breach in security that can be highlighted. First and foremost, the convoys move at such breakneck speed that if anybody accidentally comes in the path, he would either break his neck or the neck of the occupants in the car. On an occasion, we were traveling from Delhi to Bhuj in Gujarat. Entire route from the Airport to the Circuit House in Bhuj was manned by policemen on both sides. DG-CISF was personally leading the convoy in his car as the cavalcade of about 15 cars, including the lower ranked army officers accompanied us. All of a sudden a cyclist turned right and came right in front of our car, carrying some leading journalists besides me. The driver screeched the car to a halt but by then the man had been thrown off his cycle, breaking his leg.
At times the overenthusiastic political supporters, who always followed the cavalcade of the minister to the various programmes that he had to attend, banged their cars from behind when our car, with power brakes, had to stop suddenly.
While in North Block, I was personally witness to times when the doors were not manned at all by the security staff. Particularly the tunnel-shaped corridor opening towards Central Secretariat bus stop was frequently without guards as we walked to and fro without checks.
An incident that I recount here is ample proof how security is compromised time and again, even in the high corridors of power. Due to hectic work, we often had to work late in the office. After office hours, the guests were made to enter through slips sent by us. One such guest was supposed to arrive late in the evening. The guard made him call on my landline asking for permission to allow him entry. Unmindful that the phone had come on the landline instead of intercom, I told the guard to send him in and dispatched the peon with the slip. The peon kept looking for the guest but in vain. About half-an-hour later, the guest phoned me again, asking me that he was unable to find my room. When asked where he was, he said that he was calling from a room close to the PM's office. Then it transpired that the guest had actually telephoned from the South Block, which houses the Defence Ministry and the PM's office, and when I asked the guard to send him in, he allowed him to enter the South Block instead of North Block where I sat. My dear guest idled all through the corridors of South Block, with a briefcase in hand, without a proper check or valid entry pass.