Our lives under threat, GVG tells PM

Gill and Krishnamurthy had expressed their unhappiness over the Home Ministry’s decision to downgrade their security to `Y’ from `Z’ on December 12, 1998.

Sources said that on June 24, Krishnamurthy wrote a letter to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee explaining his threat perception. Krishnamurthy claimed that he and his colleagues faced a threat after the commission’s “campaign for cleansing the political system of diehard criminals.”

He said he had ignored threats to his life during 1996 and 1998 when hemonitored polls in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and other states. He had been given `Z’ category security ever since he joined the Commission in 1993. But the Home Ministry downgraded it to `Y’ for all members of the EC.

Krishnamurthy said that Gill had also reminded him of the reduction of security cover and had written a personal letter as well. Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra wrote back saying there was “no need” for revising the security.

“Nothing happened till April 28, 1999 when the Home Ministry revised the security cover to `Z’ category,” he said and added that threats to the lives of the EC members had increased rapidly ever since the elections were announced. In his letter, Krishnamurthy gave references to the threatening calls he had received over the phone.

Krishnamurthy wrote that he was writing the letter “to you (the PM) and not to the Ministry of Home Affairs, since even after you have given your attention to the need of upgrading our security, the MHA has taken four months torestore the same.”

It is learnt that the PM issued directions to the Cabinet Secretariat and the members of Commission have been allotted the `Z’ plus category cover.