Police inspect Deshapriya Park Durga Puja pandal

Supratim Sarkar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Headquarters), inspected Durga Puja pandal in Deshapriya Park on Thursday.

It may be mentioned that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had urged all Durga Puja organisers in a meeting a few weeks ago in Netaji Indore Stadium citing example of the trouble which took place in Deshapriya Park in 2015.

It may be recalled that last year, entry of people was restricted in Deshapriya Park following a rush to enter the park to get a glimpse of the tallest Durga idol.

Two pandal hoppers were injured and it led to a chaos as thousands of people were waiting in the queue to enter the park but there were no sufficient entry or exit space. 

Finally, senior police officers of the city police including the then Commissioner of Police, Surajit Kar Purkayastha had to intervene.

So this year, police are taking necessary steps to avoid similar situation in any Puja mandap.

Senior police officers had been visiting the mandaps to keep a check whether preparations were being made following the set norms.

Sarkar accompanied by Gaurav Sharma, Deputy Commissioner (South-east Division) inspected the puja mandap at Deshapriya Park. Sources said that he would be visiting the mandap once again on Friday.

Sources said that Sarkar gave certain directions to the Puja organisers and he would go on Friday again to check whether those were properly implemented. It is learnt that one entry and three exit gates will always remain open.

 

In case there is any emergency, one more entry and exit gate will be opened. The Puja organuisers will be deploying 120 volunteers to control the crowd along with the policemen from Kolkata Police. Kolkata Police will be training 30 of the 120 volunteers after Mahalaya to give them lesson on crowd control.

For the past few years, the police have noticed that people start pandal hopping from Panchami. Thus, necessary arrangements will be done to control the crowd and adequate policemen and volunteers will be deployed. Following the Chief Minister’s direction there will at two ambulances near mandaps of big Pujas and there should be enough space for ambulances to pass.