New Delhi, May 24: The Central Industrial Security Force is set to take over the Ajmer dargah’s security from Rajasthan police in the first move to put important religious places under paramilitary vigil.

“Ajmer will be the first religious location where the CISF will take charge,” said a source in the central force.

Sources pointed out that even at Andhra’s Tirupati temple, one of India’s riches shrines and which draws hundreds of thousands of devotees every year, the CISF was only a consultant.

The sources added that the government was also thinking of handing over the security of Varanasi’s Sankatmochan temple and Akshardham, Delhi, to the CISF, which was raised to protect vital industrial units but transformed itself to guard airports and monuments like the Taj Mahal and Red Fort.

The Sankatmochan temple and the Akshardham in Gujarat have been targets of militants like the 12th-century Ajmer shrine to Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti.

Union home secretary Madhukar Gupta wouldn’t say whether it had been decided that the shrine, bombed last year, would be guarded by CISF personnel, but he didn’t deny it either.

The home ministry would take the final decision but sources said the government had more or less made up its mind after the May 13 serial blasts in Jaipur.

The shrine, considered one of the country’s most secular, draws people of all faiths and from across the borders.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and the slain Benazir Bhutto have both visited the dargah and so have Bangladeshi leaders like Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia.

CISF experts have already completed a survey to gauge the threat perception and decide how many personnel to deploy at the shrine and on the equipment needed.

Narrow, crowded, winding lanes snake past the shrine complex, where many of the closed-circuit television sets, installed after last year’s terror strike that killed two, don’t work. Five of the complex’s 13 doors are closed because of security reasons.

The CISF is bracing for some opposition from local leaders, especially from the 1,703 khadims at the dargah.

“This is a place of faith towards Garib Nawaz (as the Khwaja is popularly known) and people of all faiths and classes come here,” said Syed Mehmood-ul-Hassan Chishti, the secretary of the committee of khadims at the dargah.

“We have already told the state government that we are against having a highly disciplined force like the CISF here who may not understand small needs of poor people.”

Home ministry sources said CISF personnel were trained to deal politely with all kinds of people and understood the needs of different sections.