New Delhi, Aug 3: The Airport Guarding Force, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) would be taking over the responsibility of providing security at the Leh airport from August 4, an official said here on Sunday.
This is the country’s highest-altitude commercial airport in the newly-created Union Territory of Ladakh and the security cover has been so far, provided by the Ladakh police.
‘A contingent of about 100 CISF personnel will provide round-the-clock, armed security at the strategically important airport, located at 3,256 metres above the sea level,’ an official in the Force said here.
The highest altitude airport is known as Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport, operated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and with this, the CISF will be having 64th civil airport under its security cover.
Ladakh became a Union Territory (UT) on October 31, 2019, after the Centre revoked the special status given to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated it into UTs.
The CISF has a special Aviation Security Group (ASG) to provide counter-terror cover to the airports and it has already taken over the aviation facilities at Srinagar and Jammu airports in February and March, 2020, respectively.
As of now, the Air India, Vistara, GoAir and SpiceJet operate commercial passenger flights between Leh and Delhi.
