Op Sindoor Proved Importance Of Private Security Warriors: Ex-Army Chief Upendra Dwivedi

(MENAFN- IANS) New Delhi, Nov 13 (IANS) Former Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi (Retd) described private security warriors, who are mostly ex-servicemen, as key players in the nation's defence, claiming that Operation Sindoor has proved that they would be playing an equally important role in the next war.

Addressing the 21st Annual Security Leadership Summit of the Central Association of Private Security Industry (CAPSI), General Dwivedi said that for most Indians, these one crore warriors, not the Army or police, are the face of security.

They are visible at the housing society gate, the bank door and the hospital entrance, energy, coal mines, industry, hospitals, data centres and ports - the arteries of Viksit Bharat @2047, said General Dwivedi.

The General said the security of this nation is decided not only on the Line of Control, but also at the gate of a power plant at three in the morning.

“From certification experience. From manpower to capability. From private security to a trusted partner of the Nation. That is Private Security 2.0,” he said.

Calling for partnership with security warriors, General Dwivedi said,“No unit wins alone. What stopped the drones in Operation Sindoor was no single wonder weapon. It was layers: the sensors of one organisation, the jammers of another, the guns of a third, linked into one picture. Internal security is no different.”

“The Security Warrior is the outermost layer, the first sensor. Without links between the layers there is no defence in depth; only a collection of posts. Therefore, three links,” he said.

“Security Warrior to first responders. A known officer at the nearest police station; drills together with the fire service and civil defence; and a guard's report taken seriously,” he said.

Talking of the challenges ahead, he said,“Conflict is now fought in three places at once: the physical world, the digital world and the human mind. A rumour, a radicalised individual, a compromised insider: each is a weapon.”

General Dwivedi said more than one crore Indians work in private security, across more than 35,000 agencies.

“One crore security warriors are the largest human sensor network in the country. I call it the first sensor of the nation. Trained and connected, it is a strategic asset. Untrained and unrecognised, it is a strategic gap. You are not on the edge of India's security architecture. You are inside it,” he said.

Today's security warrior has to be multi-talented like a modern-day soldier, said General Dwivedi.

“Think of a security warrior with 15 years of service: fires, crowds, thefts, medical emergencies, a few frightening nights. On paper, he is still unskilled. That is not merely unfair. It is disrespectful to a national asset,” he said.

He said this Summit takes forward two purposes: Recognition of prior learning and experience of ex-servicemen and certification of competence.

The former Army Chief said the Guarding Officer initiative gives him a new designation, which I understand the Ministry of Home Affairs has given NOC in September, he said.

“I commend the Association's Memorandum with Rashtriya Raksha University for training, assessment and certification behind it. But a new title without a new standard is only decoration. Make the rank real: certified skill, defined responsibility, and a path from the entry (gate) to supervisor to manager,” he said.

Referring to the Private Security Agencies (Regulation) Act, General Dwivedi highlighted the need to make licensing simpler and faster.

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