Keeping in mind protests for the R G Kar incident in different parts of the city, the city police are gearing up to deal with it, in addition to managing the crowd hopping between pandals.
“The city police are ready to deal with any eventuality in the face of protests and we expect cooperation from the people as well,” said city police commissioner Manoj Verma.
About 10,000 police personnel would be deployed in and around the city with 36 senior officers in the rank of deputy commissioners, with officers drawn from Special branch (SB), detective department (DD) and traffic, who would man the crowd during pujas.
City police sources said that in order to conduct crowd control more deftly, the city had been classified into many complexes. The big-ticket pujas in the city had been classified into 12 complexes, where the onus of controlling crowds and pandal-hoppers had been entrusted with 14 DC-ranking officers.
Most notable among the big-ticket pujas that draw huge crowds and cause traffic bottlenecks is the Santosh Mitra Square puja, said the police .To manage the crowd in a smooth manner, city police have decided to split security arrangements into seven sectors. About 700 policemen would be deployed for the Santosh Mitra Square. And the deployment would start from Sunday.
Apart from the 10,000 police personnel, 23 HRFS (Heavy Radio Flying Squad) and 4,000 officers of the traffic department too would be on-duty from Sunday. Of the 4,000 traffic policemen, 18 would be additional commissioners and 104 inspectors.