Over half of polling booths hypersensitive or sensitive

More than half of the 6,554 polling booths for Saturday’s elections to BBMP have been classified into hypersensitive and sensitive, meaning a strong police force will guard each of them to prevent electoral fraud and other untoward incidents.

In all, 19,859 police personnel will be deployed across Bengaluru for the smooth conduct of the elections. More personnel will be summoned if the situation warrants, N S Megharikh, Commissioner of Police, said at a press conference here on Thursday.

At least 1,121 candidates are contesting the elections for which the State Election Commission has designated 6,554 polling booths.

“Keeping in mind their sensitivity, past history and records, law and order problems and other parameters, the booths have been divided into three categories: hyper sensitive, sensitive and normal. We have concluded that 1,700 of them are hypersensitive, 1,991 sensitive and 2,863 normal booths. The hypersensitive and sensitive booths will have strong police presence. Depending on the current and local situation, police bandobast will be strengthened,” he said.

Police will deploy 751 sector mobile squads and 44 DCPs and ACPs of supervisory mobile squads. More than 300 picketing points have been set up to tackle any emergency, with each police station limits getting three of them. A KSRP platoon will be deployed near every police station, said a senior police officer.

As many as 520 sub-inspectors and assistant sub-inspectors and 3,500 head constables and constables from different parts of the State have been deployed for election duty. To keep anti-social elements in check, 1,336 individuals have been warned under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). More than 5,000 weapons have been deposited at police stations and over 1,794 pending warrants against miscreants issued, the officer added.