Around one lakh men on security duty for polls

The Karnataka state police have made elaborate security arrangements for the polling to Lok Sabha elections scheduled for April 18 in the state. As many as 90,997 police personnel will be deployed across the state at all polling booths.

As the strength of police personnel available in the state for poll duty is only 49,476 the police department has roped in services of Home Guards, Civil Defence personnel, jail wardens and forest guards/watchers this time, to make up for the shortage.

The police department has identified 11,992 booths as critical in the state and has deployed extra security forces for these booths.

With the election campaigning coming to an end on Tuesday evening, the Director General and Inspector General of Police Neelmani N Raju said the campaigns throughout the state has generally been peaceful barring two to three incidents which were local in nature. Extensive deployment was made to instil confidence among voters and to create a fearless environment for campaigning, she added.

Ten companies of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) were provided to the state out of which five each have been deployed in the areas going to polls in phase-I and phase-II respectively. Along with CAPF companies, KSRP platoons and local police have conducted flag marches in sensitive and vulnerable areas.

In order to curb violations of MCC and prevent electoral malpractices, joint flying squads and static surveillance teams have been set up in all districts. The SSTs and flying squads in total comprise of 4103 police personnel for both the phases.

As a preventive measure, 95,422 licensed arms out of 98,055 have been deposited with the police as the rest were exempted by district authorities.