Gangasagar Mela: Be vigilant in land, water & air, says Mamata
Sagar Island: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday directed the police and the district administration to remain alert and vigilant before leaving the Sagar Islands and after taking stock of the preparedness of the fair that starts from January 9.
Banerjee after boarding her chopper to leave for Kolkata from the helipad at Sagar took a brief aerial survey of the security arrangements. “The power situation needs to be taken care of. I have already told the Navy and the Coast Guard to remain alert. We need to be vigilant in land, water and air,” said Banerjee. Her concerns come in the backdrop of the present turmoil in Bangladesh since the Sagar sea border is close to the water border of the neighbouring country.
“There is a part of the sea border which is dangerous. We need to do surveillance silently. We will not be able to go beyond the border. But we should be on alert so that no untoward incident takes place. We have to increase watch towers,” Banerjee had earlier said.
Banerjee further issued directions for an aerial survey of the fair and wanted the footage preserved. She had also issued directions for strengthening drone surveillance. Real time tracking of pilgrims will be done for which 1,150 CCTV cameras have been installed. “We have laid special emphasis on drone based tracking. GPS guided intelligent crown monitoring will also be done using specialised 20 drones at important locations which will be monitored from the mega control room,” said a district administration official.
Police sources said the entire area of the fair has been divided into 12 sectors and 7 sub sectors. There will be a total deployment of 13,000 police personnel, including at least 30 senior police officials. Bomb squad, sniffer dogs, counter insurgency force will be on duty.
There will be two Navy teams, one Coastguard team and five civil defence teams for monitoring the riverine channel from Lot 8 to Kachuberia. There will be ‘May I Help You’ police booths while police in plain clothes will work on intelligence inputs.
