The “failure” of security at a top hotel in Delhi, which resulted in a major security breach on Monday, has thrown up many disturbing questions about the security set up at the top city hotels in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks even as the Delhi police keeps sending advisories to the hotels regularly to avert any such strike.
A 52-year-old Italian national, Giulio Ponetto and his two Italian friends Giovanni Ceccomello, 47, and Donato d’Angelo, 42, who were staying at Hotel Radisson on Monday, managed to break the security cordon carrying live ammunition in a bag. They were however detained in Maharashtra and handed over to the Delhi police on Wednesday.
Although the police acted in time to nab the accused who have not been linked to any terror group so far, the breach at a top hotel in the capital, which is to host Commonwealth games in October, frequented by foreign dignitaries and diplomats has caused considerable alarm among the security agencies who are likely to raise the issue with the hotel management.
Most of the security apparatus at the city hotels just seems to be an exercise to impress rather than effectively tackling such infractions which result in creating a considerable scare in the security establishment.
Police sources said the ammunition was detected inside a laptop bag by an X-ray scanner on Tuesday at around 1 am as the trio checked in.
However, the operator of the scanner overlooked the image of the laptop bag, resulting in the security breach.
“We brief the management of all hotels at regular intervals about the initiatives that should be taken to avert terror strike. In fact, we were alarmed to know that 24 rounds of live ammunition had gone undetected by Radisson’s security staff,” a senior police official said.
Interestingly, the two British nationals, who were arrested for plane spotting, were also staying at the same hotel and were carrying sophisticated equipment which failed to raise the eyebrows of the hotel’s security staff.
“We will raise the issue with the hotel and proper action will be taken,” the official said. The management of the hotel was not available for comments despite repeated attempts.