Royal's gunmen relieved, reinstated in a day

Following the death of royal scion of Mysore Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, his wife Pramoda Devi Wadiyar was set to lose the security cover enjoyed by her husband.

However, owing to the timely intervention of the Palace authorities, normalcy returned with the ‘men on guard’ again.

About seven years ago, Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar had sought ‘Z’ category security cover from the government. However, the government settled for ‘Y’ category, deputing two armed police constables from the City Armed Reserve (CAR) police force, Mysore, besides escort and pilot services.

In addition to this, the scion had his own security arrangements, with eight guards at his disposal. Barring one occasion, when the pilot and escort services provided to Wadiyar was withdrawn owing to some political developments (only to be reinstated later), there was no such disregard in the recent past. Sources told Deccan Herald, a week ago, the office of DCP (City Armed Reserve) had initiated the process to withdraw its men by relieving them from the job. However, a sudden development that caught everybody by surprise in the morning, settled by the evening after a fresh order was issued from the office of the police commissioner to reinstate the gunmen, already on the job.

Police Commissioner M A Saleem said: ‘As is the procedure, the security provided to the royal scion was withdrawn after his death. However, a requisition came from the Palace office the same day, asking for extension of security cover to ‘madam’ (Pramoda Devi), following which the service was resumed with immediate effect”.

Palace sources too confirmed the developments.