Taking serious note of the role of Personal Security Officers (PSOs) in the recent high-profile double murder of industrialist Ponty Chadha and his brother Hardeep Chadha, the Centre is now planning to formulate a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for deployment of these PSOs.
Highly placed government sources said since law and order is a state subject it will be the prerogative of the states to implement these new set of guidelines though the Centre will impress upon the States to put in place a stricter regulation for deploying PSOs. “These policemen should actually be deployed for security in view of threat perception to a person rather than more for status symbol,” a top government functionary said.
Sources said while it is now certain that firing from the AK-47 rifle of Sachin Tyagi, the PSO of Uttrakhand State minority commission chairman Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, killed Hardeep Chadha what is intriguing is as to how PSOs from at least two other states, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, were also present at the Chhattarpur farmhouse on the day of the killings. What has also prompted the formulation of new regulations for PSOs is the highly suspicious nature of the incident. What has baffled the investigators is the fact that though 45 rounds were fired, mostly by the PSO Tyagi, only Ponty and his brother were killed while a security officer was injured This, investigating officials claim, proves that both Ponty and Hardeep were specifically targeted.
Thus, the new SOPs for policemen on “protection duty’’ will clearly spell out the drill that they will have to follow in a crisis situation particularly on use of weapon. “For instance in this particular case the protectee did not sustain any injury while another person was killed by the PSOs weapon. Such incidents need to be taken seriously and probed thoroughly,’’ the official added.
Then there will be stringent norms for those entitled to a security official and this would require a detailed threat perception which will have to be carried out by the Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) and then endorsed by the state home department.
Government sources admitted that norms for getting PSOs were being grossly violated, particularly by the states.