He was provided round-the-clock security by the Mumbai police whenever he was in the metropolis, though he used to flout it regularly by not taking the escorts, particularly for late evening and night visits.
Mahajan was assigned four armed securitymen who formed his escort. They would always shadow the BJP leader in a separate escort vehicle wherever he went. Even on the day he was attacked, there were at least eight armed security guards on the ground floor of Purna building in Worli in Central Mumbai, where many a political leaders have their residences.
Despite these security measures, Mahajan's younger brother Pravin could easily shoot him in his own apartment. Since then, the security procedure has been tightened and even relatives of a protectee are duly scanned.
That high profile murder apart, the reputation of Mumbai police as far as personal security is concerned stands quite high. A few months back, the crown prince of Bahrain, Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa was on his first visit to Mumbai and was assigned 400 personnel of the protection branch to guard him.
He was so impressed with the bandobast that he decided to give them a hefty tip : US$ 100 for each policeman. The total came to around Rs 20 lakh. According to a senior police officer, it was not an unusual occurence.
This fact in itself has, however, put enormous strain on Mumbai police force, almost one fourth of which is engaged in guarding VIPs, film celebrities and high profile individuals. Although the protection branch was not willing to disclose any details about how many persons are under its security wing, a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by an activist Chetan Kothari forced the branch to reveal those details. And they are quite interesting.
The Mumbai police force has the sanctioned strength of 41,914, which includes 8,425 police officers above the rank of ASIs and 33,489 policemen, as on July 1, 2007. Out of this, 12,083 personnel, including 2,353 officers and 9,730 policemen are assigned to protect VIPs and celebrities in Mumbai.
This force is used to guard 1,865 VVIP/VIPs including mostly politicians, judges and top government functionaries, 14 film stars, six individuals related to court matters and 116 individuals who have sought police protection fearing threat to their lives.
While the police are duty bound to protect official VIPs like MLAs, ministers or corporators, they do charge individuals for providing round-the-clock safety. Among the film stars who are provided this type of protection are Big B Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and others. Many film personalities routinely approach the crime branch with complaints of threats to their lives from underworld and are provided with armed guards.
In one such instance, actor Salman Khan was always escorted by armed police and it was he who caught the actor for his rash driving, which took the life of one person and injured four in an infamous hit-and-run case. The constable, who was with Salman at the time of accident in 2003, died recently. The case, however, is going on and if proved guilty, Salman will face seven years jail.
In another instance, the police were in a quandary when former ganglord turned politician Arun Gawli was elected to the state assembly as an MLA and sought police protection. All legislators and MPs are provided 24 hour police protection, but in his case, the deputy chief minister R R Patil declined police protection. However, the Speaker intervened and directed the home department to be equal with all legislators.
Former police commissioner Satish Sahaney has gone on record stating that this huge engagement of police force in VIP security is a “waste of public expenditure.” Certainly, when the officers and men who graduate from police training schools with training to investigate crimes are sent for protection duty, the people suffer as they are denied services of competent officers.
