BBMP polls: Police sweat it out for poll day

Bengaluru: The police are on their toes to ensure that Saturday’s civic election passes off without incident. However, in the run-up to the BBMP polls, the city has been witnessing stray incidents of violence amid some high voltage campaigning. And much to the disappointment of the voters, this time also parties have fielded candidates with dubious records, with some even booked under the Goonda Act. Team DC reports.

The Bengaluru City Police have made elaborate security arrangements for the BBMP elections to be held tomorrow. The police are determined to ensure free, fair, and incident-free elections. They will be deploying 19,859 police personnel, including 103 platoons of KSRP, which will have 3,600 men including striking teams, for the first time in election security arrangements in the city.

The police have classified the total 6,554 polling stations designated by the State Election Commission into hypersensitive, sensitive and normal polling booths, keeping in mind the politically and communally sensitive areas and taking into account the past history of the locality, and other law and order parameters.

A total of 1,700 polling stations have been identified as hypersensitive, 1,991 stations as sensitive and the remaining 2,863 are considered normal polling stations. Each hypersensitive polling station will be deployed with 1 head constable, one police constable or a home guard, and one police constable and a home guard for sensitive polling stations and one police constable for normal polling booths, said N.S. Megarikh, City Police Commissioner.

A total of 751 sector mobile squads will be deployed along with 44 supervisory mobile squads throughout the city for effective bandobast. Three picketing points in each police station jurisdiction (totaling 309 across the city) will be established to attend to emergency requirements and to tackle any untoward incidents.

To augment the police strength in the city and the rural areas bordering the city which also come under the BBMP limits, staff from two commissionerates and five range Inspectors General of Police have been mobilized for supervising the election. A total of 520 police sub inspectors/assistant sub-inspectors and 3,500 head constables/police constables from outside will be deployed. A total of 103 Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) platoons will be brought in and the platoons will be used as 206 striking parties.

Around 7000 home guards have been deployed to meet the security requirements. All arrangements will be supervised by the city commissioner of police and other senior officials. Around 850 static wireless sets and 2,500 handheld walkie-talkie sets have been pressed into service for reliable communication among the policemen on election duty.

As a precautionary and preventive measure, action against 1,336 rowdy elements has been initiated under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to keep the peace and tranquility. 5,268 firearms have been deposited in the respective police stations along with the serving of 1,794 pending warrants against antisocial elements, said Mr. Megarikh.

The police commissioner along with his immediate juniors, have been making their rounds and inspecting one police division after the other to ensure all technicalities in policing are being taken care of.