In order to ensure free and fair polls in the left Wing Extremist (lWE) affected areas in the State, Jharkhand Police has developed a multi-pronged strategy to tackle the red rebels who are becoming active to thwart poll process in the State. Extensive operations are being conducted in the lWE areas resulting to the recovery of huge cache of arms and ammunitions along with the arrested of few hard core rebels targeting some of the politicians to stall the poll process during the elections.
Moreover, Police will also be doing booth mapping before the polling to identify the most sensitive booths in the state where special offices will physically visit the area and try to convince the voters to take part in polling after ensuring security to them. According to the guidelines issued by the Election Commission, Micro Observers are to be deployed for the super sensitive booths and video recording of the polling is to be ensured by the administration so that close vigil could be kept on the poll process during the elections.
Strict guidelines have also been issued to the politicians not to disclose their programmes in public in advance and to inform the police before visiting a place. “To avoid any untoward incident, politicians are regularly being briefed to take precautionary measure before visiting a place and take police into confidence during their visits in their constituencies,” said Ranchi DIG Praveen Singh.
Meanwhile, a special monitoring cell with the Jharkhand Special Branch is monitoring the movement of important leaders in Naxal-dominated areas in the wake of the Maoist attack on Chhattisgarh Congress leaders last month. The security committee after reviewing security of the VIPs and prominent politicians in the State will provide them security accordingly.
To check the red rebels taking advantage of the cross border infiltration, Jharkhand, Bengal and Odisha police have taken a joint decision to work in tandem to strengthen the telecom network in sensitive bordering areas, besides sharing information on absconding criminals and Maoists to ensure free and fearless polling in the area. The decision was taken after a meeting of senior police and CRPF officials of the three neighbouring states at Jamshedpur.
Stress was laid on a better cross-border sharing of information on history-sheeters, Maoists, their sympathisers and aides as well as absconding criminals of the area in bordering districts of the three States.