The up-market JW Marriott hotel, hosts various official and private US agencies and was provided elaborate security cover after the attack on the Islamabad Marriott on September 20, 2008.
The state police administration is planning to withdraw the round-the-clock security cover provided to five-star hotels and other important private premises. To begin with, the state reserve police force (SRPF) personnel posted at the JW Marriott, Juhu, have been removed.
The up-market hotel hosts various official and private US agencies and was provided elaborate security cover after the attack on the Islamabad Marriott on September 20, 2008.
Security was further enhanced after 26/11, with the deployment of specially trained and armed men drawn from the SRPF. A platoon of 30 men, along with two officers, was put on guard.
“Due to heightened terror threats, our main objective is to guard the state-owned vital installations and the public at large. The affluent five-star hotels can arrange for their own security,” said a senior home ministry official who did not wish to be named due to the ongoing assembly session.
“We have been telling concerned managements for a long time to make their security arrangements. While some of them did initiate the necessary measures, the others did not bother to act,” the official added.
It is also learnt that the Taj - one of the two south Mumbai hotels ravaged by the 26/11 attacks — is in the process of having its own security system but would be provided with state protection for some time.
The official added that private citizens were provided police protection, but were charged for the same. “The hotels, on the other hand, did not pay a single penny for the elaborate security cover. We are already suffering from a shortage of men in uniform and need more men on the streets,” the official added.
Additional commissioner of police, west region, Amitabh Gupta, however, said that the personnel posted at Marriott have been removed as they were needed elsewhere. “We have the police recruitment exercise and the state assembly session going on, so we needed our men to be posted there,” Gupta said on Friday.
The hotel management, however, refused to comment on the issue.
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