According to top government sources, the Central government has provided ‘X’ category armed security cover of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Punjab. The move has come after the intelligence bureau (IB) report indicated a threat.
MHA has ordered CRPF to provide ‘X’ category security to the leaders following the IB report. Former Punjab cabinet ministers Balbir Singh Sidhu and Gurpreet Singh Kanga along with former MLA Jagdip Singh Nakai, as well as Amarjit Singh Tikka are among the BJP leaders who provided the security cover. All four leaders recently joined the BJP after dumping Congress.
The Centre in October had also provided ‘Y’ category’ security cover to five BJP leaders in Punjab based on a similar IB report.
The MHA used to provide ‘X’, ‘Y’, ‘Y+’, ‘Z’, and ‘Z+’ category security through Central Armed Police Forces CAPFs) like CRPF and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) following threat assessment based on IB reports.