State Police Chief K.S. Balasubramanian has said Kerala will witness the largest deployment of security forces for the April 10 Lok Sabha elections when compared to previous polls. For the first time, an all-women battalion will also be on election duty.
Stating that security arrangements had been made for the peaceful and smooth conduct of elections on April 10 as per the guidelines of the Election Commission, Mr. Balasubramanian said in an official statement here on Monday that over 51,000 policemen and women had already been deployed in the State. They included 55 companies of Central forces, 5,000 personnel from the State Armed Forces, and 9,000 special police officers.
In addition, over 2,000 persons belonging to other uniform cadres in other departments such as the Excise and Forest would be deployed for maintenance of law and order, apart from the home-guards. All District Police Chiefs had been given directions to take all precautions for the smooth and peaceful conduct of the elections and to prevent intimidation, violence or other untoward incidents.
He said the striking force would be in the field to take the necessary security measures for the completion of voting in a free and fair manner. He said that 1,200 group patrol units and 900 law and order patrol units would be deployed on polling day to take prompt action to prevent attempts to create tension and violence. He said the group patrol units had been given video cameras to capture violence and their perpetrators on video. Over and above this, 280 election circle striking force and 130 sub-division striking force had been deployed to face emergency situations. All Zonal ADGPs, Range IGs and District Police Chiefs had been given striking force units.
An election control room had started functioning at the police headquarters. The control room telephone number is 0471 2721512. Election control rooms had been opened at all district police headquarters, which had been provided with hotline, wireless, mobile, and Internet facilities. The arrangements for post-poll security had also been taken, with three-tier security being provided at all the counting stations. Security for tackling post poll law and order problems had also been taken, he said.
