VISAKHAPATNAM: Following a country-wide red alert sounded by Central intelligence agencies, the police are gearing up to scale up the security to the highest level for the 23rd edition of the CII Partnership Summit to held in Visakhapatnam on January 27 and 28.
Apart from Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is categorised under ‘Z plus plus’ category, 20 Union Ministers, including Nirmala Seetharaman (Commerce ), Arun Jaitley (Finance), Venkaiah Naidu (Urban Development), Nitin Gadkari (Surface Transport), Piyush Goyal (Power and Coal), and Suresh Prabhu (Railways), have confirmed their participation.
Moreover, there will be over 2,000 delegates, including commerce and trade Ministers from over 12 countries such as UAE, Cambodia, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Trade delegations from over 10 countries have also confirmed their participation.
“Hence, we have to be very cautious and cannot take any chance,” says a senior police officer from the Special Branch.
Elaborate security plans have been made. In all, 600 policemen, including officers, have been brought in from other districts to throw a security blanket over the APIIC grounds, the venue for the event, and all hotels, where delegates will be staying.
In all, 3,000 policemen will be providing security for the two-day event. It is learnt that about 200 policemen have been exclusively drafted for traffic duty.
According to an officer, all entry points to the venue will be secured with door frame metal detectors (DFMD) and hand held metal detectors (HHMD). This apart, a number of bomb disposal (BD) squads and sniffer dogs have been requisitioned from other districts to augment the local set-up.
Bullet-proof cars with electronic jammers and road opening parties will be part of the convoy.
Special police teams from the elite forces such as Octopus, Intelligence Security Wing (ISW), AP Special Police, and Greyhounds will form part of the security cover, says an officer engaged in the security arrangements.
These apart, all hotels, beach road, and the venue will be under the cover of CC TV cameras and monitored from the Central Command Centre 24/7.
