Coronavirus: CISF sets up open-air security station on Delhi airport tarmac

An open-air security check facility was set up by the CISF on the tarmac at Delhi airport to screen passengers arriving from coronavirus-affected countries, officials said on Sunday. The security station is equipped with hand-held detectors, baggage screening x-ray machines and door-frame metal detectors to frisk passengers who are brought to the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) on way to quarantine centres created in other cities.

As these passengers cannot be brought to the main terminal area and have an onward journey, it was decided to create a security station right along the tarmac, a Central Industrial Security Force spokesperson said. This open-air station cleared the first lot of 236 passengers on Sunday morning when Indian passengers evacuated from Iran landed here on way to an Army quarantine centre in Rajasthan's border town of Jaisalmer.

The passengers de-boarded a Mahan airlines flight at about 3 am and were transferred to two Air India charters to Jaisalmer after each passenger was frisked by CISF staff and their baggage scanned at the makeshift security station, the spokesperson said.

"A special component of CISF personnel equipped with full-body protective gear carried out the pre-embarkation security checks of these passengers," he said.

The CISF is the national civil aviation security force and currently guards 63 airports. The station is makeshift and will be placed again on the tarmac when any other such flight carrying people evacuated from COVID-19 affected country lands in Delhi, the spokesperson said.