Removal of prosthetic limbs not mandatory at airports: CISF

The CISF on Friday said it has decided not to ask differently abled passengers to take off their prosthetic limbs for security checks at airports across the country, except in rare cases when profiling necessitates such action.

The move is a part of new security norms to avoid inconvenience to such persons, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officiating Director General Alok Kumar Pateria said at his annual press conference here.

CISF Additional Director General M.A. Ganpathy (incharge of airport section) said: "We have now instructed our personnel to visually inspect passengers wearing prosthetic limbs and only ask them for further scrutiny if initial profiling shows something amiss.

As per earlier security norms, disabled passengers were shifted to wheelchairs during pre-embarkation frisking at airports.

He said that the decision was taken in a meeting attended by CISF and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) officers a few months ago.

"The idea was to review the existing BCAS provisions which without compromising on safety make them disabled-friendly."

Another CISF officer said that a prosthetic which does not have any foam padding cover under which weapon/explosive can be concealed and in which a steel rod is clearly visible, may be visually screened and undergo explosive trace detector checks without removal.

Only in rare cases where there is sufficient justification based on profiling of the passenger may x-ray screening be resorted to, he said.

--IANS

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