Kochi: The President Pranab Mukherjee and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were scheduled to visit Kochi on December 20 and 21 respectively, which was putting city police chiefs under pressure because of the clash of dates in conducting rehearsals for VVIP patrolling, but the cops can heave a sigh of relief as the PM has reportedly canceled his visit.
A source in the state police department confirmed that they received an official message that Manmohan Singh’s proposed visit had been cancelled.
However the Kochi city police is yet to receive any communication in this regard from Thiruvananthapuram. The cops in Kochi are also in the dark over the visit of the President as it is yet to be confirmed.
The city police has been tense over the visit of the two VVIPs on adjacent dates. “For VVIP visits, we need to brief the force about the patrolling and route plans two days before the visit, conduct a rehearsal run on the previous day and serve on patrolling duty on the day of visit.
But when the President and the Prime Minister scheduled their visits on adjacent dates, we were tense because we would not have had time for running the rehearsal for the security and patrol for the Prime Minister’s visit,” said a source in the city special branch police, that leads the security arrangements.
The intelligence wing had also reportedly asked the government to change the date of the PM’s visits owing to the clash. Based on this, the PM’s office had earlier tried to advance the visit, but later decided to drop the entire plan owing to security concerns.
He was scheduled to attend the functions of Kerala Chamber of Commerce, LNG and Matrubhumi in Kochi and St. Thomas College at Pathanamthitta.
