NEW DELHI: The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday decided to scale down the security cover provided to late former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur following a report by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) on the threat assessment, officials said.They said the security cover has been downgraded from ‘Z’-plus to ‘Z’ category on the basis of revised threat perception.The officials said that during a recent review of the threat perception following the report of the IB it was found that Gursharan Kaur’s threat level was lower and thus it was decided to place her under Z category protection.Former Prime Minister Singh had passed away at the age of 92 on Dec 26, 2024.“The CRPF will continue to provide security cover to Kaur with Z security detail, having a lesser number of personnel. Singh was given Z-plus CRPF cover with ASL protocol in 2019 after SPG protection was limited to five years post-tenure for former PMs and their kin,” a senior security official said.Now under the Z category, 87-year-old Kaur will have the protection of about a dozen armed commandos of the CRPF for her personal safety as well as for her home. The new categorisation will also see a reduction in the number of Delhi Police personnel sanctioned for her protection.The VIP security cover under the central protection list begins from the highest Z-plus (ASL) to Z-plus, Z, Y, Y-plus and X.Singh, a Congress stalwart, served the country as the Prime Minister for two consecutive terms from 2004–14, but he is largely credited for the 1991 economic reforms when he was finance minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government.
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