Pune cops sound terror alert before Ganapati

Police to deploy 300 personnel in 89 sensitive locations in city, ask people to report any suspicious activity

Keep your eyes and ears open, is the appeal by the city police to the people, two days prior to Ganeshotsav. The police said there was specific terror input for the festival and have asked citizens to inform the police control room if they come across any suspicious object or activity. Considering the past terror attacks, wherein vehicles were used as bomb carriers, the police have declared no vehicle zones within 100 metres from the Ganapati pandals.


CP Meeran Chaddha Borwankar

To facilitate the parking of vehicles, the police have approached private and non-private educational institutes to open up their parking lots for visitors to the pandals. Commissioner of Police Meeran Chaddha Borwankar said several students and other people had volunteered to become 'police mitra' to ensure an incident-free Ganesh festival.

"With the participation of citizens and co-operation from mandal we are confident the festival will be incident-free," Borwankar said. Borwankar said the police had received inputs from Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Intelligence Bureau about the chances of sabotage but it would be improper to disclose the same considering the safety and security of the city.

DCP Makrand Ranade of Special Branch (SB) said that the 2 km periphery of Dagdusheth Halwai temple would be considered sensitive zone and 300 personnel attached to Special Branch would constantly monitor the sensitive locations. DCP Ranade added that the police had identified 89 such sensitive locations across the city.

Borwankar said in all 380 meeting were conducted so far from Commissionerate to Chowky level involving merchants, students, mall and multiplex owners to sensitise them on the perspective terror alert. The pamphlets have been distributed and posters have been displayed to alert citizens.

Cyber Cell of the city police has sent bulk messages to citizens alerting them on suspicious object and asking them not to touch it. The police have also undertaken mock drills to control riot situations. The police have already conducted security audits of sensitive premises and the owners have been served notices on lacunas in security measures.

Cops get festival-ready
Cyber Cell DCP Sanjay Shinde said considering that terror module use insecure Wi-Fi connections to send terror emails, a drive was conducted recently and 600 out of 5,200 connections were found to be insecure. The same information has been shared with Internet Service Providers and 60 owners of insecure Wi-Fi connections have been served notices. The police have asked for additional forces in addition to the 6,000 men in the city. Four teams of SRPF will be deployed. Six anti-sabotage and equal number of fully equipped and trained BDDS teams will be deployed at strategic locations. At all the 89 locations CB and SB will be deployed round-the-clock. Apart from this eight Quick Response Teams trained by Force One are also kept on ready mode. In case of suspicious object or activity citizens can inform at 100 or call (020) 26122880.