Special meetings are underway in all the 14 District Collectorates in Kerala to review the internal security situation in the State ahead of the Allahabad High Courts verdict in the Ayodhya case scheduled to be pronounced on Thursday afternoon.
District collectors are chairing the meetings attended by district superintendents of police, revenue divisional officers and tahalsidars.
A high level group headed by Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department, K. Jayakumar, Director General of Police, Jacob Punnose, and Additional Director General of Police, Intelligence, Siby Mathews, are monitoring the meetings. Senior officials will provide a comprehensive brief of the meetings to Mr. Balakrishnan before 2 p.m.
The Government has permitted district police chiefs to tighten or impose prohibitory orders in consultation with district collectors after Thursday mornings review. Officials said so far there has been no ban on the sale of liquor in any district in the State.
As many as thirty thousand police personnel have been deployed for internal security duty in the State. The State Government has cancelled leave for all police personnel till Saturday. The Fire and Rescue Department, ambulance services and major hospitals in the Government and private sector has been put on the alert.
Three Rapid Action Force companies of the Central Reserve Police Force are expected to arrive in the State from Coimbatore this afternoon. One company each will be deployed in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode.
The police are conducting anti-sabotage checks at railway stations, bus stands, along railway tracks and other key public utilities in the State. It has directed its coastal vigilance committees, consisting of seagoing fishermen, coastal community leaders and local police officers, to be alert.
Coastal police stations in Kerala have stepped up patrolling along the shoreline. The units are in constant touch with the Indian Coast Guard and the Navy.
The police on Wednesday night detained three youth in Kollam on the charge of disseminating provocative and malicious Ayodhya issue related text messages as SMS through mobile telephones.
The police have directed mobile phone service providers in the State against misuse of their networks for spreading rumours and inciting unrest.
The police have posted pickets near landmark religious places of worship and less than 20 localities, including coastal neighbourhoods, identified as highly sensitive by the State police intelligence.
The police detained scores of persons across the State on Wednesday night. Officials said most of them were travellers who could not immediately produce authentic identity proving documents when challenged by police patrols. Most of the detained persons were let off from police stations after verification early on Thursday.
