Govt may help private security cos recruit

MUMBAI: Tuesday’s freak incident at film star Shahrukh Khan’s bungalow, in which a security guard shot his colleague dead, has prompted an intervention by the government of Maharashtra.

The government may consider recruiting private security guards and putting in place a stringent code of conduct for private security agencies to ensure safety, not only of VVIPs and VIPs, but also of the general public, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said on Thursday.

Mr Deshmukh, however, made it clear that the government would restrict its intervention to recruitment and establishment of certain parameters for recruitment. The chief minister said he had discussed this with home minister RR Patil. “We could ask the director general of home guards to recruit personnel to private security agencies.

This will help the government have a mechanism to monitor the services being rendered by private security agencies. There would also be certain eligibility criteria for recruitment to private security agencies,” Mr Deshmukh said. The chief minister appreciated the general apprehension that private security agencies in Mumbai recruit their personnel without verifying their credentials.

Mr Deshmukh also shared the concern that many security personnel recruited by the private agencies have arms license issued in their native places in north India. It’s worth a mention that the security guard at Mr Khan’s house who shot his colleague dead had an arms licence issued in Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh.

The security agency had apparently not verified his past record or credentials while recruiting. “Technically speaking, the labour department deals with the issue of private security agencies and their personnel. But given the situation we are living in today, it’s high time the home department also looked into it now.

The times that we all are living in demand us to be more vigilant and aware about the credentials of private security personnel,” Mr Deshmukh acknowledged. But the chief minister also pointed out that the government could not bear the cost of recruiting private security personnel.

”We cannot pay their salaries. The best that we can do is put in place certain parameters for recruitment which would be monitored by the DG, home guards, and accordingly recognise private security agencies,” he said.