Central Industrial Security Forces (CISF) will exclusively be manning three civilian airports of two UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh very shortly. The decision seems to have been taken keeping in view the overall security scenario of these airports plus protecting the assets in and around them. Jammu airport will be the first airport to be handed over to the CISF. Nearly, 800 personnel of the said force for these airports have been sanctioned by the Union Government.
It may be recalled that this Force was tasked with the security of airports following hijacking of an India Airlines aircraft in 1999. With that background , the Force is guarding 67 of the operational 100 airports in the country. Since both Srinagar and Jammu airports due to obvious reasons are categorised as hyper sensitive, the new deployment is seen in that context. Before the new arrangement is made applicable, necessary logistics and other facilities like barracks, control room, watch towers, x-ray scanners etc for the deployment are required to be made reportedly before the onset of summer season.