The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ comes under review

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Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

‘Standard Operating Procedure’ comes under review

S. Vijay Kumar

CHENNAI: ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ or the contingency plan to be implemented during times of emergency situations in the State has come under review in the wake of the terror attack in Mumbai.

At the Secretariat, Chief Secretary K.S. Sripathi convened a meeting to review the security preparedness of the police force in the event of exigency on Tuesday.

Top officials, including Home Secretary S. Malathi, Director-General of Police K.P. Jain among others took part.

According to police sources, steps have been taken to bring changes in the SOP to make it more effective.

The Tamil Nadu Commando Force, State Intelligence and the Special Task Force have submitted proposals for acquiring advanced weaponry, gadgets and infrastructure.

Response time

“We want to minimise the response time taken by the police in countering an emergency. Some districts have submitted SOPs…mock drills have to be conducted to check the effectiveness,” a senior police official said.

As part of the new strategies that are being devised, the police have proposed to cordon off 100-metre radius at any site of emergency and declare it as a sterile zone during special operations. Besides strategic reasons, this initiative is said to be in the interest and safety of media persons.

A media cell would be established to give regular updates on the happenings to journalists.

“By getting too close to areas of disturbance, media persons are likely to expose themselves to risk. We consider 100-metre radius as fatal range for a bullet and 150 to 200 metres for a powerful explosion. Our intention is more to protect the journalists from getting hurt during such operations,” he said adding that the proposal was being sent to the DGP.

Cyber lab

For the first time, the Chennai Police are set to acquire ‘Cyber Laboratory’ under the ‘Modernisation of Police Force scheme.’ Among other benefits, the facility would help in retrieving deleted data.

“Even when information is deleted from the recycle bin, it is possible to retrieve it with the help of forensic tools. Earlier we were referring hard disc to the Forensic Department for analysis,” an official in the Cyber Cell said.

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