Elaborate security arrangement for Puri Rath Yatra

Last Updated June 06, 2019

Puri: Director General of Police (DGP) Dr Rajendra Prasad Sharma today said that at least 155 platoons of police forces will be pressed into service along with three units of Anti-Terrorist Squads (ATS), two companies of Rapid Action Force (RPF), and three companies of Swift Action Force (SAF) for the ensuing annual Rath Yatra in Puri. This year Rath Yatra falls on July 4. Security arrangements will be in place till Niladri Bije on July 15. Sharma, who chaired a review meeting on security arrangements, said the CCTV cameras that were damaged due to the cyclone Fani, will be repaired or replaced to keep a watch on anti-social activities during the fete. The DGP also allotted exclusive responsibility to senior IPS officers to make the annual car festival incident-free. Railways and Coastal ADG Pranabindu Acharya will supervise the arrangements of railways police while IG (Intelligence) RK Sharma will supervise security and special branch arrangements and IG (Headquarters) Asit Panigarhi will monitor crowd control management and IG (Crime Branch CID) will monitor crowd near the cordons of the three chariots. While ADG (Law and order) Sanjeeb Panda will to take charge of law and order IG (SAP) Amitabh Thakur will look after the traffic management. IG (Central Range) Soumendra Priyadarshi will be the security in-charge of inside the 12th century shrine premises during the festival.