Security lapses irk Congressmen

guwahati: in insurgency-prone assam, the venue of the ongoing congress chief ministers' conclave, it is once again the state police that ended up with egg on its face. the charge - security lapses and complaints galore, brought forth by its own partymen. it all started thursday, when the congress bigwigs started arriving one by one for the party jamboree.at the city's lgb international airport, personal security officers of the assam police's special branch - all plainclothesmen - were supposed to receive the outstation vvips they were protecting. "each outstation vvip was assigned one or more plainclothesmen. however, the special branch personnel failed to turn up at the airport", said a state congress leader who had gone to receive one of the outstation vvips. fortunately, the pilot and escort vehicles were there and the party bigwigs finally travelled to the city under the protection of special branch personnel attached with ministers, legislators and other state congress leaders, who were assigned on protocol duty with the visiting vvips. that's not all. on friday, chief minister tarun gogoi - all set to receive congress president sonia gandhi at the airport - could never make it there, allegedly because the state police gave him wrong information. a congressman explained: "a very senior special branch official cited an incorrect timing for the arrival of the congress president's aircraft. the plane landed half-an-hour before the time the chief minister was told it would." aides of punjab chief minister amarinder singh are also reportedly extremely peeved with the state police for not providing him a bullet-proof vehicle. once again, it is the special branch, handling bullet-proof vehicles of assam police, that is at the receiving end. a congress worker said: "the punjab team is irked, more so because they came down in a private plane all the way because of security reasons, and here, they are not even been given a bullet-proof vehicle." assam director general of police harekrishna deka, when contacted, said that he would look into the matter the moment he received an official complaint in this regard. interestingly, even the city - which is supposedly in a state of high alert because of the presence of so many vvips - witnessed as many as three dacoities thursday night. one of these was in a house next to that of a local congress legislator.