3,000 police, 900 CAPF personnel will be on duty
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Over 3,000 police personnel, officers and around 900 Central Armed Police Force will be mobilised to monitor polling at the 1,622 polling booths in the April 12 general elections in Goa.
The Election Cell of Goa Police has identified 43 polling stations as critical – 31 in North and 12 in South. There additional manpower will be deployed to thwart possible untoward incident.
Superintendent of Police Shekhar Prabhudesai told Herald that armed security at each booth has been categorised as per the requirement. This will also include CAPF personnel.
Special security arrangements have been made at single, double, triple, quadruple and quintuple polling booths wherein four to five CAPF jawans will also be deployed. A total of 10 companies of CAPF, five each for two districts that arrived in Goa last month have already been allotted duty at polling stations.
The officer said that the two districts have been divided into 41 sectors – 21 in North and 20 in South, and 12 zones – nine in the north and three in the south districts. “Zonal officer of the rank of deputy superintendent of police or police inspector, and sector officer of police sub-inspector rank have been appointed for these sectors,” he explained.
Besides the present force, the department has stationed reserved police force at the headquarters in case of emergencies.
A coordination meeting of all officers headed by DGP T N Mohan was held in the PHQ on Monday, to assess security needs. In the one-hour long meeting, police officers were instructed to carry out their responsibilities in the respective jurisdictions as it also had a word of warning that any kind of indiscipline will attract action from the Election Commission.
Sources said the police force was told about double duty – to ensure that election code is not violated and second to oversee security when the election takes place.
