District police officers have been directed to be alert to avoid any untoward incident in view of the Babri mosque demolition anniversary slated on December 6. State IG (law and order) Deepam Seth said on Monday that both the range -Garhwal and Kumaon- officers have been directed to instruct their district police officers to deploy forces at sensitive and crowded places. Police and intelligence staff have been put on alert in Haridwar and other parts of the State too. However, Utarakhand police are still groping in the dark over the death of 12 –year- old Tushar Dhiman in a bomb blast in Roorkee on December 6, 2014. NIA teams have not submitted their investigation reports to Uttarakhand police as yet.
Seth said that though the Centre has not issued any specific high alert they were taking precautionary measures.
A Haridwar police officer said they were doubly alert in view of the mosque demolition anniversary and the ongoing Piran Kaliyar Mela which started on December 1, adding that Anti Terrorist Squad, three companies of PAC, 400 constables, 80 sub-inspectors and five inspectors have been deputed by way of security measures.
CO SK Singh said that following the direction of the State senior police officers, several teams have been formed and deployed along the inter-state border areas to conduct vehicle checking drives. “Some teams have been deployed in the busy market areas and other sensitive places too. They all have been directed to be alert in their respective areas,” he added.
However, the Roorkee blast case that killed a 12-year-old boy in 2014 on the day of Babri Masjid demolition anniversary has failed to make headway despite two years having passed since the incident occurred. The blast triggering scare across the State, teams from National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Special Task Forces from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand had visited the blast site and collected evidences. NIA teams are yet to clear things, police sources said.
Notably, 12-year- old Tushar Dhiman had died after a bomb had exploded under Gangnahar police station limit in Roorkee, around 50 metres away from DAV (PG) College, Roorkee. Significantly, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had been holding a meeting to mark the anniversary of Babri mosque demolition (observed as Shaurya Diwas) near the place where the blast occurred. The boy while on his way back home from school along with two friends had picked something up, taking it for a ball, near a petrol pump at Nehru Nagar. It had later exploded, killing him on the spot.