PANJIM: The Goa Assembly elections held on Monday saw biggest seizure of cash, liquor and narcotics, totally valued at Rs 12.72 crore.
According to Inspector General of Police (IGP) Rajesh Kumar, this is highest seizure in elections held so far in the State. The seizures included Rs 6.6 crore cash seized by the Income-Tax officials at the instance of police at Margao, Rs 3.57 crore worth liquor, gold and silver worth Rs two lakh and Rs 1.275 crore worth drugs. The total liquor seized during the election was 85,445 bulk litres.
IGP Kumar said that the Goa police also took preventive measures against 1700 persons. The police called history sheeters, bad character persons and the Police Inspectors (PIs) visited their houses and warned them not to indulge in any anti-social activities during elections.
The Goa police also received 38 minor calls but no complaint was serious enough to be converted into a crime.
“This had a very good effect and that’s the reason we had no crime reported or violence on the polling day,” Kumar said adding that 55 companies including 45 CRPF companies, 10 Indian Reserve Battalion and nearly 5000 police personnel were deployed for the election held in the single phase.
“Due to all these efforts, we were able to achieve satisfactory results,” said Kumar.
Chief Electoral Officer Kunal said that nearly 100 polling stations were monitored by the Election office by using the Artificial Intelligence (AI) based system of Webcast monitoring designed by the Department of Information Technolgy (IT), Goa.
Using the Webcast system, the polling stations were monitored and live headcount was displayed on the screens in the Election Office. The system was deployed at 53 vulnerable locations, 28 pink polling booths, eight Divyang (Persons with Disability) booths and regular booths, Kunal added.
