‘Security breach’ at PM Narendra Modi’s Jaffna event

Sources said that the PMO has taken a “serious” view of the lapse and is monitoring the probe.

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The Prime Minister’s Office is monitoring the probe and the R&AW and the Ministries of External Affairs and Home are also part of the investigation.

In a suspected security lapse that set off alarm bells in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s entourage, a Sri Lankan youth broke the security cordon in Jaffna and walked up to within handshaking distance of the PM as he was about to board his car following a public event there last Saturday.

Sources said the Special Protection Group (SPG) is “looking into” the incident given that two of its officials were responsible for the section of the security cordon that the youth allegedly breached. The Prime Minister’s Office is monitoring the probe and the R&AW and the Ministries of External Affairs and Home are also part of the investigation.

Around 4 pm on March 14, after the Prime Minister concluded the handing over of possession certificates for houses to women beneficiaries in Ilavalai village, he went behind the stage to board his car. As he was about to board the white SUV, sources said, a Sri Lankan youth, in his 20s and dressed in shirt and trousers, approached him, and was about to shake hands with him when SPG personnel caught him. The youth did not touch the Prime Minister, sources said.

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The youth is said to have told SPG officials that he wanted to “shake hands and take a picture” with the Indian Prime Minister. A pat-down search was done by SPG personnel and the man was handed over to the Sri Lankan police.

When the man was questioned by SPG and the Sri Lankan police on how he could get access to the event which was heavily guarded, he mentioned some names, including that of an official in the Indian Consulate in Jaffna. An Indian High Commission official told The Indian Express today that the youth has been released by the local police after his questioning. “The Lankan police actively cooperated with us,” the official said.

The venue was in a village located about 16 km away from Jaffna. All roads to the venue, where a makeshift dais along with a blue tent was erected to accommodate the audience and the beneficiaries, were sealed off.

Sources said that the PMO has taken a “serious” view of the lapse since this was the first time a Prime Minister had gone to Jaffna.

Shubhajit Roy

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

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