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Barely two weeks after the Mumbai blast and a nationwide alert, three youngsters in a luxury car managed to breach the most protected and heavily guarded building in the country - the Prime Minister’s residence at 7 Race Course Road – in a prank that has exposed the chinks in the SPG’s supposedly impenetrable armour.

The black Sonata driven by 20-something Yogita on Thursday night shows the ease with which one can breach security arrangements at 7 RCR. Yogita was not only allowed to pass through first security cordon but was not detained when she was stopped at the second cordon.

On any given day, getting into 7 RCR involves a long security drill, with security passes, IDs, mobile phones and even the attire of visitors being thoroughly scrutinised. A justifiable question now is, if despite all this, three people could drive into 7 RCR with such ease, what security implications does this have, especially at a time when LeT and terror threats on sensitive installations are being talked about?

Ssecurity arrangements at 7 RCR is exclusive responsibility of the SPG, or Special Protection Group personnel are required to stop vehicles of anybody - including VVIPs and foreign dignitaries - at the first set of barricades. This was done in the case of the black Sonata. Then, protocol dictates that the car be barred from moving any further, as only the vehicle in which a VVIP is travelling is allowed to go ahead beyond that point.

However, nothing of the sort happened when Yogita, Veena and Imran drove their car inside 7 RCR.

After sending the entire PM security appartus in a tizzy, the three occupants of the Sonata which was driven inside 7 RCR were questioned by a joint team of the SPG and the Delhi Police by the Chanakyapuri Police Station, where the trio had to spend the night.

Till Friday morning, no formal criminal case had been registered against them. All three youngsters had been subjected to a medical checkup, and police said they were waiting for the final report. Sources say however, that they were in an inebriated condition during the incident.

The two girls were identified as Yogita Khatwani and Veena Choudhari, both from Rajasthan. The two girls have claimed that they had completed a course in an airlines academy in Jaipur in September 2005, and formerly worked with Air Sahara – but that, due to indiscipline and lack of attendance, they were asked to leave.

Imran was a friend who accompanied them for a late night drive. The youngsters, who had told the guards at the first security barricade that they were the PM’s relatives, now claim that they just wanted to meet the PM.

Meanwhile, Veena Choudhary’s family in Jaipur has reacted with shock. TIMES NOW correspondent Vishal Barristo spoke with her uncle Col Baldev Choudhari in an exclusive interview.

“I was shell-shocked…it’s a very unfortunate incident, and it was immature on their part,” said the colonel. “She (Veena) rang me up, and asked, ‘Are you watching TV?’ Then she told me that they were on TV because they had gone to meet the PM, and has been let through. I asked how it could be possible, and that they had no business to go there – after all, he’s the PM of India. She sounded thrilled, like she’d climbed Mt Everest. I think it was an impulsive decision, they would not have thought of media attention at the time,” he said.