New Year celebration: Mumbai Police to focus on anti-terror ops

Mumbai: Maintaining that their main focus is on anti-terror operations, Mumbai police said they have devised three-pronged strategy to avoid any untoward incident during the upcoming New Year celebrations.

"To ring in the New Year, a large number of Mumbaikars gather at public places like The Gateway of India, Marine Drive, Chowpatty among others. We have deployed police at these places," said DCP (Detection), Dhananjay Kulkarni. He said the focus would be on women's security, drunken driving and terrorist activities.

"We are giving priority to women's security and have formed anti-eve teasing squad at every police station. They would be in civil dress and would patrol public places regularly to keep a tab on troublemongers," he said.

"Many accidents occur in the city during December 31 night revelry. To curb such incidents, we would blockade various places. Drivers would be checked with the help of breath analysers and action would be taken against the offenders," the DCP said.

"Our focus is on anti-terror operations. Mumbai is always a target of terrorists. Keeping this in mind, we have not given permission for boat parties in the sea this year," he said.

The officer added that the police forces would patrol the sea at night and be on guard against possible terrorist activities.

Responding to a query, Kulkarni said, "There is no specific input about any terror activities. But since it's festive season, we would have to be more alert."

He also said that Mumbaikars would be under CCTV surveillance during the celebration.

"The CCTV project in South Mumbai has been started and the command centre is in the control room of police headquarters. With its help, we would keep an eye on anti-social elements and take action against the culprits," he said.