**Puri:** In a bid to ensure a hassle-free and incident-free Rath Yatra (annual car festival) in the pilgrim city here this year on coming Sunday (June 25), four Inspectors General of Police (IGPs) of Odisha to hold the fort with the deployment of 127 platoons of police force and hundreds of other police officials.
This was revealed after a review meeting on security, traffic and law and order for the world-renowned gala religious event presided over by Odisha Director General of Police (DGP) K.B. Singh on Thursday.
The elaborate security arrangements for the annual Rath Yatra on Sunday have been divided into nine segments.
While ADG Binayananda Jha will look after overall security during the Rath Yatra, IG Sanjiv Panda will be in charge of the traffic management and IG Asit Panigrahi will control congestion.
ADG Satyajit Mohanty and IG Diptesh Kumar Pattanayak will be in charge of the chariot cordons while IG Soumendra Priyadarshi will be in charge of the Sri Mandir.
Total 127 platoons of police force and two companies each of Rapid Action Force (RAF), Special Operation Group (SOG) and Orissa Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) will be deployed during the occasion on the day here in pilgrim town.
Soon after the review meeting, DGP K.B. Singh informed media, “Today we held a meeting on Rath Yatra police arrangement. The officers who have been mobilised for the purpose were present at the review meeting. Nine segments are there. One segment will look after temple duty, another cordon duty, third chariot dragging, fourth one is crowd management and traffic, fifth is VIP security, sixth is railway arrangement, seventh is control room duty, eight is communication and ninth is signal duty. For each a senior officer has been assigned. Now the concerned segment heads will brief their personnel accordingly about the nitty gritty. Later, spot briefing will be made on the spot deployed tomorrow so that they will appreciate the nature of duty and come to know about their colleagues for the spot and assignment.”
“Besides, 28 SPs, 28 ASPs, 68 DSPs, 136 inspectors, 646 SIs, 86 ASIs, 127 platoons OSAP, 468 constables, 113 traffic constables, 1,580 Home Guards, 2 companies RAF will also be engaged to guard the annual festival,” the DGP informed on mobilisation.”
“Even we have formed our own Odisha Swift Action Force having screened our personnel akin to the RAF and trained there. They will also be deployed this time for tackling serious law and order problem here. They have been armed with non-lethal weapons and are able to sustain maximum stresses as they have already undergone psychological test for the emergency situation,” the Odisha DGP further informed.
