Security fine-tuned before Independence Day parades

Photo by India Times

BHUBANESWAR: Senior police officials on Monday fine-tuned the security arrangements for Independence Day functions across the state. Security will be beefed up at parade venues in Maoist-infested districts.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik is scheduled to unfurl the Tricolour at the state-level celebration to be held on Mahatma Gandhi Marg (MGM) in Bhubaneswar.

It will be a challenge for the cops to provide security to ministers in Maoist-hit areas. While commerce and transport minister Ramesh Majhi will be attending the Independence Day parade in Malkangiri, health minister Atanu Sabyasachi and sports minister Sudam Marandi will join as chief guests at Koraput and Rayagada, respectively. Sources said the ministers will take the road route to reach their scheduled destinations.

"We do not have any threat from subversive groups. We are making a broad security cover for the smooth conduct of the parades across Odisha," DGP Sanjeev Marik said. Patrolling and frisking of visitors at the entry and exit points of the Maoist hotbeds have been intensified, Marik said.

Sources said more than 30 platoons of security forces, quick reaction teams, sniffer dogs and bomb squads would be deployed along the Mahatma Gandhi Marg in Bhubaneswar. "Security arrangements apart, steps have been taken to divert traffic during the parade period," twin cities commissioner of police R P Sharma said.

From Saturday, the police have mounted surveillance in city hotels, railway stations and bus stands to keep tabs on troublemakers. "Night patrolling and blocking on roads are being conducted regularly. We have appealed to the citizens to alert the police (on these numbers 100, 9438882266 and 9438884411) if they come across any suspicious characters," Sharma said.

Police said internet cafes in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack have been kept under surveillance. Naveen, on the eve of the Republic Day in 2010, had received threatening emails from a miscreant, sent from a cyber cafe. An unknown person had allegedly breached the security cordon of Naveen during the Independence Day parade here in 2009.

The state government last year had mulled shifting the parade venue from the busy MGM to Kalinga Stadium. However, it did not work out due to technical problems.

By India Times