Insurance hiked for staff in Kabul,Iraq

In the wake of heightened security threat to Indian officials and staffers in some of the missions abroad,New Delhi has made a re-assessment of the security risk and increased the insurance cover in Afghanistan and Iraq....

In the wake of heightened security threat to Indian officials and staffers in some of the missions abroad,New Delhi has made a re-assessment of the security risk and increased the insurance cover in Afghanistan and Iraq,besides enhancing the security paraphernalia in missions of neighbouring countries.

Sources in the security establishment told The Indian Express that the insurance cover to every official irrespective of the rank posted in the Indian embassies in Kabul and Baghdad as well in the four consulates in Kandahar,Herat,Mazar-e-sharif and Jalalabad all of them in Afghanistan has been hiked to Rs 50 lakh. The existing insurance cover was Rs 30 lakh. It will cover all those officials who have been drawing salaries from the missions accounts.

New Delhi,which has been monitoring the security situation in the neighbouring missions,is also sending bullet-proof vehicles to the missions in Pakistan,Bangladesh,Sri Lanka and Nepal. The decision was taken after there were inputs of risk to Indian diplomats in these countries.

Sources said for every person,who is declared to be at a potential risk,two bulletproof vehicles have to be sent. This is done keeping in mind the situation that if one of them suffers a breakdown,there is always a back-up.

Right now,the heads of missions are being sent two bulletproof vehicles each,and after a secondary assessment in the coming months,the security cover may be extended to other officials.

Officials in Afghanistan already have been provided with bulletproof vehicles to move around. Sources said most Indian officials in the mission in Kabul have been living out of their offices,and they have been asked to minimise their public exposure after the attacks on the mission in the last couple of years.

With the security situation not conducive in most of the neighbouring countries,self-contained complexes are being built in Kabul,Islamabad and Kathmandu,which will be insulated from security threats.