PANJIM: Against the backdrop of rape by a security guard in the capital city and the stringent rules imposed by the Home Department, the agencies providing security guards have claimed that they employ “clean, reputed guards”.
A 51-year-old housekeeping employee had complained that she was raped in a commercial building in the heart of the city by 23-year-old security guard Sanjay Kumar Mallik.
The State Home Department has already begun a stringent process of registering the security agencies, only to find that some agencies providing security guards to several firms failed to register themselves with the government, but still operate – illegally.
“There are 20 agencies providing security guards, who have registered with the Home Department. There are 65 more applications that are awaiting the approval,” Sanjiv Gadkar, Additional Secretary (Home) told Herald.
The department has been adopting strict measures, due to which 11 applications of the security firms have been rejected on various grounds. These firms have now approached the Chief Secretary.
“The antecedents of the people employed by security agencies have to be verified by the agencies with the help of the police department,” said Gadkar.
The agencies, however, claim that their record is clean and they adopt all measures to ensure that the guard at one’s doorstep is of “clean character” and “without criminal antecedent.”
The agencies argue that they employ persons only after police verification. But in certain cases, sources said, some have no patience to wait for the police report and finalise the recruitment.
To this, the agencies claim that verification takes time as it involves police from different States. Some, on the other hand, conduct an independent inquiry.
“We take all the details and send our team to States from where we get people seeking jobs in bulk. These are from Nepal and Odisha. For the rest, we wait till Goa Police submits a verification report of the recruit. Their training begins only thereafter,” said W Fernandes of the Cobra Group, a reputed security agency.
Similarly, Kings Intelligence Services conducts its own inquiry as depending on police verification consumes their precious time. The agency interestingly hires educated security guards, who are later trained before being deployed at starred hotels and high-profile places.
Stanley Joseph, proprietor of Goa Security Bureau, stated that they are solely dependent on police verification, though it consumes time. They too deny recruiting persons sans police verification.
“We conduct 100 per cent investigation through the local police. However, there is a delay in receiving the report, but we understand their practical difficulties as they have to contact their counterparts in other States. It also depends on whether our counterparts submit reports to Goa Police on time,” he said, adding that majority recruits hail from Assam and are mostly deployed at the industrial sector.
“The guards are provided training at our training centre, followed by refresher courses post-recruitment,” said Joseph.
Jatin Mishra of Kings Intelligence Services echoed Joseph’s views. He said that police verification was compulsory and claimed that with full training provided to their recruits, the agency sends them for a month-long training only after verification.
With very few Goans in the job, the Goa Human Resources Corporation, supported by the Goa government, has taken away a large part of their share. Fernandes claimed that places, including government offices, such as the Secretariat and Goa University, where their security guards had been employed, are replaced by GHRC.
Dhanraj Harmalkar, Secretary of the Security Association of Goa, is of the opinion that the government should crack down on the unregistered agencies.
