Fallout of drink-brawl: KSRP to guard Karnataka Bhavan

A “party” by a group of writers with drinks that disturbed inmates, including a Supreme Court judge, two months ago, has now prompted the Karnataka Government to deploy armed policemen to guard Bhavans it owns in the national capital.

A batch of 15 Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) Force deployed at Karnataka Bhavan-I at Chanakyapuri a few days back. Another batch of 17 men would be deployed at other two Bhavans located at Sardar Patel Marg and Khel Goan near Siri Port.

At present only Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir Bhavans have their own armed police to guard their establishments. Karnataka is the fifth state to have a similar kind of security arrangements.

"The deployment of KSRP personnel will give an exposure to them on different climate and culture. This will also help our police personnel to get different perception in security arrangements," Bhaskar Rao, Additional Director General of Police (KSRP) told Deccan Herald.

We have made arrangements to station one platoon of KSRP at the national capital. Every three months, one platoon will come from Karnataka and team which already served three months duty in Delhi, will go back to state, he said.

The KSRP men, who will be deployed at Karnataka Bhavan, are trained to handle any eventuality, he said.

Earlier, private security agency hired to guard the Bhavans. However, the government decided to deploy armed guards as the private security guards unable to handle the security, said an official said.

Recently, Resident Commissioner Nilay Mitesh had written to the state government to provide armed guard security to Karnataka Bhavan since VVIPS including Chief Minister, Governor and High Court Judges, Ministers and MLAs were staying during their visit to the national capital.

Two months back, Delhi Police raided Karnataka Bhavan on the complaint that some writers from Karnataka held an illegal party and creating a nuisance.

Members of a delegation led by Kannada Developmental Authority (KDA) were “partying illegally” night at Karnataka Bhavan-I, where they were staying. In the same building, the Supreme Court Judge Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, who was also earlier Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court, got disturbed with this and called the police.

Subsequently, it was known that some of the outsiders were also in the party illegally. Following this, the state government decided to tighten the security of Bhavans and also prevent entry of unauthorised persons to the building, sources in the Chief Minister Office said.