After a six-month tryst with an all-terrain four-wheel-drive patrol vehicle on the Kovalam and Shanghumugham beaches, the city police are bidding farewell to the vehicle with the State government deciding that the vehicle would patrol Kannur’s beaches from now on.
An order, asking the police to send the vehicle - a Rs.18 lakh-Polaris Ranger Crew 800 six-seater - to Kannur has been issued and the vehicle, currently stationed at the Valiyathura police station, is expected to leave the city this week.
City Police Commissioner H. Venkatesh, however, maintains that the arrangement is a temporary one, ‘may be for three months at the most,’ after which the vehicle ‘might’ come back to Thiruvananthapuram since it was proving to be ‘very useful’ here.
“It is being sent there for use on the Kannur beach by the police so that they too can have the experience of using such a vehicle for patrolling,” Mr. Venkatesh told The Hindu .
However, according to another senior police official, chances of the vehicle, originally intended for anti-Maoist operations in Kannur, Malappuram and Wayanad districts, returning to the capital are bleak.
Used for patrolling The shifting of the vehicle to Kannur is expected to puncture a hole in the patrolling plans of the Shanghumugham sub-division, where it was being used quite effectively over the past one month.
Jawahar Janardh, Assistant Commissioner (Shanghumugham), said that the vehicle, which was taken out for patrolling on Sunday night as well, was a major boost to patrols here.
Anti-socials were using remote stretches of the beach, including corners of the Tsunami Park, which were hitherto left uncovered by the police since sand prevented patrol bikes from reaching dark spots.
The vehicle had solved this issue and had helped bringing down crime on the beach to a major extent, Mr. Janardh said. The all-terrain vehicle had reached the Kovalam police station on March 26. After a few delays in getting clearance papers, it was launched for patrolling in Kovalam on April 22. However, with high tide swallowing a major portion of the beach there regularly, patrolling the beach became a tough preposition and on August 1, the vehicle was shifted to Valiyathura for use on the Shanghumugham and nearby beaches.