No need for differently-abled fliers to remove prosthetic limbs at airport

New Delhi: The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on Friday said it has decided not to ask differently-abled passengers to take off their prosthetic limbs for security checks at airports across the country, except in rare cases when profiling necessitates such action.

"The move is a part of new security norms to avoid inconvenience to differently-abled persons," CISF officiating Director General Alok Kumar Pateria said at his annual press conference here.

CISF Additional Director General MA Ganpathy (Airport SectoR) said, "We have instructed our personnel to visually inspect passengers with prosthetic limbs and only ask them for further scrutiny if initial profiling shows something amiss." As per earlier security norms, disabled passengers were shifted to wheelchairs during pre-embarkation frisking at airports.

Ganapath said that the decision was taken in a meeting attended by CISF and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) officers a few months ago.

"The idea was to review the existing BCAS provisions which, without compromising on safety, make them disabled-friendly," he added.

A CISF officer said that prosthetic limbs with foam padding, under which dangerous items can be concealed, may be visually screened and undergo explosive trace detector checks without removal.