Shillong, Mar 27: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma today informed the state Assembly that the state government was not encouraging any VIP culture in the state and provides security to deserving people as per the guidelines of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
He further stated that the government has been adhering to Supreme Court’s guidelines against use of tinted glass in vehicles and called upon the members of the House to bring to the notice of the government if they happened to notice people behaving like VIPs.
The chief minister was responding to a zero-hour notice brought by VPP legislator, Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit who questioned the state government on the steps it would take against people who are behaving themselves as VIPs.
Basaiawmoit said that it had been noticed that a friend of a relative or business partner of those who were at the helm of affairs were taking advantage and this has become an eye sore to the people of the state.
“In the past four to five years, it seems that there are too many people who behave themselves as VIPs by putting tinted glass on their vehicles and even on vehicles without a registration number. We have witnessed that they even used the VIP siren,” the VPP legislator said.
He also mentioned that the Supreme Court had banned the use of tinted glass, restricting visions beyond permissible limits as fixed under the Motor Vehicles Act, in vehicles.
According to him, the use of tinted glass in vehicles has certainly helps the criminals to escape from the eyes of the police and to carry out a heinous crime, like sexual assault on women, robberies, kidnappings and so on.
In his reply, Chief Minister said that they are adhering to all the rules that are there. “In fact, even in my personal vehicle also I don’t put tinted glass. We are ensuring that we practice what we preach. We have taken immediate action when we notice any such things,” Sangma said.
He also requested the members to bring to the notice of the government if there are people who behave like VIPs. “We will immediately take action,” he said.
The chief minister further said that there was no classification on VIPs in the state government.
“However, for the purpose of security we adopt the Ministry of Home Affairs directives, which categorize protected persons as Z plus, Z, Y plus, Y and X categories,” Sangma informed.
According to him, the security entitlements of protected persons are as per the classified secret document of security arrangements for the protection of individuals, which is called the yellow book by the government of India Ministry of Home Affairs.
Informing that there are 103 VIPs who are provided security under in the different categories, he informed that there were two under Z plus category, 10 under Z category, none under Y plus category, 19 under Y category and 72 under X category.