DEPLOYMENT OF SKY MARSHALS INCREASED AMID HIJACK THREAT

NEW DELHI: India has increased the deployment of sky marshals on board commercial flights against the backdrop of the terrorist attack on the Uri army base and the intelligence wing flagging a hijack threat.

Sky marshal, also known as an air marshal or flight marshal, is an undercover agent deployed on a commercial aircraft to counter a hijack attempt. “The deployment of sky marshals has gone up substantially, especially on international flights, after the terrorist attack in Uri. Other security measures like increased passenger profiling are being done,” said an aviation ministry official.

There have been regular intelligence inputs warning of possible attempts to hijack an aircraft ever since an Indian Airlines flight (IC-814) was hijacked by members of a Pakistan-based terror group in 1999 and flown to Kandhar in Afghanistan.

Government has also decided to set-up a hotline and video-conferencing facility to connect the country’s 12 top airports with the anti-hijack control room at the cabinet secretariat office in Rashtrapati Bhawan, as first reported by HT on January 21.

Citing the terror attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, aviation ministerashokgajapathirajuhad recentlywarnedstategovernments NEW DELHI: Senior IPS officer Karnal Singh was on Wednesday appointed chief of the Enforcement Directorate, the agency entrusted with probing money laundering cases.

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved the appointment of Singh as Director, Enforcement Directorate (ED) till August 31, 2017, i.e. the date of his superannuation, an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training said.

Singh, a 1984 batch IPS officer of Union territories cadre, is holding the additional charge of ED chief since August last year. He is at present Special Director in the ED.

He got third extension in August this year to hold the additional charge of the post of ED chief for six months.

The post had fallen vacant after the government had in August last year curtailed the tenure of Rajan S Katoch, the previous Director of ED.

Singh was on August 19, 2015 given the additional charge of the post for three months and his tenure was extended in November by another three months, and later in February by six months.