The police have installed a new baggage scanner near the Srirangam Sri Ranganathaswamy temple to examine the personal belongings of devotees visiting the shrine.
Manufactured by the public sector Bharat Electronics Limited, the new scanner has been put up inside the newly constructed cloak room adjacent to the Renga Renga Gopuram.
The new scanner is a replacement to the existing device which is proposed to be deployed at the Rockfort Sri Thayumanaswamy Temple.
Police sources said the new scanner was installed a few days ago at the newly inaugurated cloak room where the personal baggage of devotees is being kept in safe custody.
The new scanner would be commissioned the moment the vendor completes the connectivity, say police sources.
The personal belongings of devotees visiting the shrine would be subjected to a thorough check by sending them through the scanner installed inside the cloak room before they were kept in safe custody, say the sources.
Procured through police department funds, the scanner would be manned by personnel of the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) of the City Police deployed in shifts at the temple.
A team of BDDS personnel are already deployed at the three entrances of the sprawling temple as a security measure to check the devotees visiting the shrine. The BDDS has deployed Door Frame Metal Detectors and provided their personnel with Hand Held Metal Detectors to check entry of any unauthorised objects inside the temple.
The existing scanner was proposed to be deployed at the famous Sri Thayumanaswamy Temple at Rockfort which also attracts devotees from across the country and from different parts of the world, the sources said.
The sources said the temple authorities had planned to install around 40 advanced cameras to cover the entire temple area and its vicinity in the near future to step up surveillance.
The video footages generated from the cameras would be monitored from three spots, including the police outpost near the temple. The cameras were planned to be installed for administrative and security reasons, the sources said.
