All steps taken for free, fair polls: DGP
Hyderabad: Director General of Police M Mahendar Reddy said that the police is geared up for polling in 119 Assembly Constituencies in 31 districts on December 7. He said all measures for maintenance of law and order is made extensively for the peaceful conduct of polling.
The DGP said that training sessions were conducted at State headquarters and all the district headquarters including Commissionerates on possible Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations and other guidelines of ECI to be followed by police personnel during elections. Coordination meetings were held with various State departments, Central agencies as well as border police officers to meet manpower requirement, for effective enforcement along bordering districts as well as for proper planning of bandobust for the election.
Senior officers were appointed for strategic planning to assess inter and intra State requirement of forces based on political and communal sensitivity as well as extremist angle. Security has been provided to contesting candidates belonging to various political parties as per their threat perception. Special arrangements have been made for Left Wing Extremist areas bordering Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. Combing operations and area domination exercises have been carried out extensively to prevent untoward incidents in area. State and Central security forces have also been deployed.
A record number of non-bailable warrants were executed as a run up to the election. The process of election has been transparent with registration of 1,314 FIRs (poll violence, SC/ST and MCC cases) on various complaints against different persons and political workers for violence or MCC violations. Close watch is being maintained over all the inter-State and inter-district borders. Air ambulance and helicopters are being arranged by CEO for any contingency at the strategic locations.
He said that a total of Rs 86.59 crore cash was seized till now across the State, biggest including Rs 10 crore cash seized on October 19 by Adilabad police which was handed over to Income Tax Department. And in another incident Rs 7.51 crore was seized on November 7 by Hyderabad police and the same was deposited in the Court.
The DGP said for the peaceful conduct of the elections across the State flying squads (414), SSTs (404), Mobile parties (3,385) were formed. Till now 1,314 FIRs filed, 17,841 security cases booked. 90,128 persons bound over and 8,481 licensed weapons were deposited, and 11 unlicensed weapons seized, 39 Arms Licenses were cancelled. 1,172 MCC violation cases filed and 11,853 NBWs executed. Four lakh litres liquor worth Rs 2 crore was seized. Other items include 146 grams platinum, 689 grams diamonds, gold weighing 17 kg, silver weighing 106 kg worth Rs 6.70 crore was seized. Ganja, gifts and freebies all together worth Rs 1.62 crore was also seized.