The Union government has directed the complete withdrawal of the National Security Guard (NSG) from VIP security duties, transferring the responsibility for nine “high-risk” VIPs to the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) by next month, according to official sources on Wednesday.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has also approved the formation of a new battalion of specially trained personnel, recently reassigned from Parliament security, to strengthen the CRPF’s VIP security division.
Sources indicate that the protection of nine ‘Z-plus’ category VIPs currently safeguarded by the NSG’s elite ‘black cat’ commandos—Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his predecessor and BSP leader Mayawati, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, veteran BJP leader and former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, former Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh, former Jammu and Kashmir CM Ghulam Nabi Azad, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu—will now be managed by the CRPF.
The transition between the two security forces under the MHA’s supervision is anticipated to be completed within a month. The CRPF, which already has six VIP security battalions, will incorporate a seventh for this task. This newly assigned battalion previously provided security at the Parliament until a security breach last year prompted the transfer of those duties to the CISF, a senior official shared.
As part of this process, a team from the Andhra Pradesh Police was recently in Delhi to oversee the transition of CM Naidu’s security from the NSG to the CRPF, the sources added.
Additionally, two of these nine VIPs—Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and UP CM Yogi Adityanath—will have the CRPF perform the advanced security liaison (ASL) protocol, which involves advance reconnaissance of locations the VIPs are set to visit.
The move to withdraw the NSG from VIP security has been under discussion since 2012, when NSG commanders anticipated the possibility of simultaneous terror attacks across multiple locations in India, requiring the commandos to respond to several situations at once.
In January 2020, PTI reported that after the Special Protection Group (SPG) was withdrawn from the security detail of the Gandhi family—Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra—a committee from the MHA recommended the removal of NSG from VIP protection duties.
The government has decided to “restructure” the NSG, reallocating its resources to establish ‘strike teams’ of commandos in high-risk zones such as around the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and other critical assets in southern India.
Once the withdrawal of NSG from VIP security is completed in November, it will mark the end of more than two decades of the ‘black cat’ commandos being assigned to this role, which was not part of their original mandate when the force was established in 1984.
As the NSG marks its 40th anniversary on Wednesday, the Union government maintains that the force should return to its original mission of handling counter-terrorism and anti-hijacking operations, as the responsibility of protecting high-risk VIPs was straining its specialized capabilities.
It is expected that around 450 NSG commandos will be freed from VIP security duties following this transition, sources said.
