Next time you get into an airport, the CISF officials will be smiling less at you

New Delhi, Oct 10: The next time you check in for an air travel and find the security personnel at the airport not smiling at you, don't feel offended. For they have just been told to smile less and focus more on the security aspect.

According to an Indian Express report, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) which is responsible to maintain security in as many 60 airports in India, may have earlier emphasised on improving their soft skills to make it more friendly for passengers, but now things are set for a change.

CISF DG Rajesh Ranjan said the "over-friendly" approach to be one of the reasons for the 9/11 attacks in the US and now, plan is on to concentrate more on security and that will make the security personnel more vigilant.

"We cannot be over-friendly with the passengers because one of the reasons cited as to why 9/11 (the 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Centre in the US) happened... was excessive reliance on passenger-friendly features where security personnel went out of the way to ensure that the passenger is facilitated, thereby compromising on security," the IE quoted Ranjan as saying.

The top CISF official said this while interacting with reporters ahead of the two-day International Aviation Security Seminar at Vigyan Bhvan here on Tuesday, October 9.

CISF ADG (Aviation) M A Ganapathy said at a press conference that the security personnel will move from a "Broad Smile System" to "Sufficient Smile System" to focus more on foolproof security.