Tightening safety belt

New Delhi, Aug. 10: Security officials guarding the country’s airports have been given a quick lesson by British experts in the run-up to Independence Day.

The five-day course, conducted by the UK’s department for transport, had top security officers from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, the Airports Authority of India, the Central Industrial Security Force, Air India and other bodies training in new techniques and practices.

The major airports will not allow visitors inside between August 10 and 17 while quick reaction and disaster management teams are at the ready. Bomb squads and sniffer dogs have also been brought in.

Airports have started special armed patrols at the “city-side” — the technical term for non-operational areas — as well as the periphery.

In the high-alert period ahead of Independence Day, airlines have also introduced random second checks and air marshals.

Although British security systems have come in for criticism from many quarters — which include the International Air Transport Association (IATA) — Indian security officers who attended the course said the steps had been “effective” in UK airports and had forestalled several attack bids.

Giovanni Bisignani, general director of IATA, which represents some 250 airlines, has been critical of British security screenings. He said last month that the UK’s “unique screening policies inconvenience passengers with no improvement in security”.

India, which goes on high alert before August 15, feels it needs to adopt tougher security practices, keeping in view the increasing threat perception.

Global security analyst Stratfor hinted at this in a report earlier this month.

“Over the past few years… Stratfor has observed a growing nexus between transnational jihadis — al Qaida and its affiliates — and militant Islamist groups operating out of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir…. (There is a) shift by Kashmiri militant groups towards transnational jihadism,” the report said.

In recent years, India has been coordinating and exchanging intelligence with countries like the UK and the US as these nations feel there is a heightened threat to their airports and planes.