Security Tightened For Puri Rath Yatra

Bhubaneswar: With the world famous Rath Yatra scheduled to kick off in Puri next week, the Odisha Police has made elaborate security arrangements to ensure smooth conduct of the mega festival.

A high-level meeting to this effect was held at the Commissionerate Police headquarters here this afternoon.

Briefing mediapersons after the meeting, Director General of Police (DGP) Dr RP Sharma said 145 platoons of armed police force, more than 1000 policemen, 2000 Home Guards, two companies of Rapid Action Force (RAF) of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), two companies of the Swift Action Force (SAF) of the Odisha Police, two units of Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel, one unit of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and two units of the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) would be deployed in Puri.

“To ward off any untoward incident during the festival, the State Police has requested the Centre to send a team of National Security Guard (NSG) commandos,” Sharma added.

He said the meeting also discussed other issues like internal security, air and coastal security, mobilization of force at sensitive locations, traffic management, vehicle parking locations, safety of women, children and senior citizens, location to set up camps for the security personnel and security provision for VVIPs.

It was decided that the Additional Director General (ADG) Satyajit Mohanty will remain in charge of the overall security for Rath Yatra this year.

Besides, senior police officials in the rank of the Inspector General (IG) will manage the traffic, inner cordon, and the rush of devotees in and outside the temple. The commandants, deputy commandants, assistant commandants, additional SPs and DSPs will work out the order of the IGs with proper coordination among themselves.

The DGP had a threadbare review of the coastal security and safety of the railway passengers.

For the safety of the people, 400 life guards will be deployed along the beach area while a number of CCTV cameras will be installed at several locations in and outside, the railway station to keep a watch on the movement of the passengers.

The Government Railway Police (GRP) will set up control rooms at the railway station to provide necessary assistance to the passengers.

For traffic management, a round-the-clock control room has been set up at Kumbharapada Police Station. The entire traffic network in Puri would be controlled and monitored through this control room during the festival. To ensure proper traffic management, CCTV cameras will be put up at the selected locations. The meeting also decided to set up a temporary traffic control room at Malatipatapur on the outskirts of the Puri.

The DGP said the entire Puri town will be divided into four zones with one senior officer in charge of each zone. Each zone will have seven sectors, which will remain under the charge of select officers.

“All officials and the security personnel will arrive in Puri by July 10,” he added.

Among others, Director (Intelligence) Sunil Roy, ADG (Provisioning) Satyajit Mohanty, ADG (Communication) Arun Ray; ADG (Railways and Coastal Security) Pranabindu Acharya; ADG (Modernisation) Binaytosh Mishra; IGP (SAP) Sanjib Panda; IGP (Central Range) Soumendra Priyadarshi; Additional Commissioner of Police, Bhubaneswar, Sanjay Singh; IGP (Headquarters) Asit Panigrahi; IGP (Law and Order) Amitabh Thakur. Puri SP Sarthak Sarangi and other senior police officials were present.