62 suspicious objects detected around IGIA in 3 months: CISF

Around 62 suspicious flying objects were detected at Delhi IGI Airport airspace since October 27, 2015 till January, 2016. However, none of them posed any threat to flight operations or airport. A majority of these suspicious objects were later found as Chinese kites, balloons and the like.

CISF director General Surender Singh during an annual interaction with journalists said a total of 62 such incidents have been reported from October 27 last year till Tuesday. 

“These objects, however, like toy balloons, kites, Chinese balloons among others. It is very difficult to make out (about the kind of the flying objects with naked eyes),” Singh said.

The DG further said the government is likely to come up with an operation guidelines to tackle such cases after a similar incident was reported last year when a suspected drone-like object was spotted near IGI Airport runway. While the Central Industrial Security Force is the overall in-charge for airport security in the country, it is assisted by local police and the Indian Air Force, more pro-actively at sensitive facilities like IGIA.

Officials said new guidelines or Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all airports are required while dealing with such potential threats as there are multiple stakeholders in civil aviation security and hence, a clear chain of command and task is required to thwart a possible aerial attack by using these gadgets.

The CISF boss was also asked about the menace of hoax calls received at airports.

The DG said while 44 such calls were received last year at across various airports the force is deployed at, 16 such calls have been made till now this year.

Meanwhile, a total of 160 “weak points” or chinks in the security of Delhi Metro have been identified and measures are being taken to plug them, the CISF on Tuesday said.

Force chief Surender Singh said CISF and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) have deployed ‘queue managers’ in order to keep a check at these vulnerable areas in the Delhi Metro which witnesses over 26 lakh footfalls every day.

Acknowledging that there have been some “weak links” in metro security infrastructure as the partition between the paid and un-paid areas at numerous stations is “low”, the CISF chief said the force and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) have taken up the issue with DMRC.

He was commenting on the security upgrade in the rapid rail network of the national capital region, which has over 150 stations and runs across Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon, in the aftermath of a scary incident where a gun carrying man entered the station area and shot himself in an apparent suicide bid last year.