Whose security is important? More than 50% of policemen in Mumbai on VIP duty
1 Sep, 2013
An application was filed with the Mumbai Police under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get the details about the strength of police in the city and the number of policemment deployed on VIP duties.
The reply to the application reveals that more than 50 percent of the total police strength in the city is engaged in VIP security. The data provided in the reply shows that the total strength of policemen on duty in Mumbai is 48,969 while the number of policemen engaged in the security of VIPs is 27,740. This implies that only around 20,000 police personnel are responsible to provide security cover to almost 2 crore population of the city.
For every lakh of the population there are just 137 policemen in India and diversion of a large part of them for VVIP security has already raised eyebrows. A sum of Rs. 341 crore was reportedly spent for the security of VVIPs in Delhi last year of which Rs. 40 crore was spent on the security in Rashtrapati Bhawan alone. The Supreme Court has also questioned the trend of providing extremely high security to politicians at the cost of security of common man after the Delhi gang rape incident.