Cops sanitise areas ahead of Ivanka’s visit

Hyderabad: As the date of US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka's arrival on November 26 draws closer, the police are working overtime to ensure a safe stay for her in the city, notwithstanding the fact that they are unwittingly causing a lot of hardship to the people who either live or work near Westin where she would be staying and in Falaknuma and Golconda areas where she would be attending dinners to be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Nov 28 and 29 respectively.

With US Secret Service personnel arriving shortly to provide security to Ivanka, the police have become hyperactive. They have already started making the areas where Ivanka would be visiting sterile by taking several measures to gather intelligence about the assembly of persons of shady past.

According to a senior police officer, a total of 2,000 police personnel are being deployed in and around Falaknuma and about 500 CCTV cameras are being used to keep tabs on the movement of vehicles and people. They have already conducted cordon and search operations and rounded up 67 persons who were involved in cases earlier.

This apart, the police are sewing up the areas near Westin which is in IT corridor without a consideration whether such a move would create problems to the software employees. The police have already given instructions to the software professionals that they should not move out on the day Ivanka would be moving out of her hotel to visit places. As she would be staying for four days, the employees would have to go through an ordeal to reach their workplace.

""We are giving passes to the vehicles and only those displaying them would be allowed in the IT corridor and a strict no-no to others," a senior police officer said. Since Westin hotel where Ivanka would be staying is in the midst of IT companies, her movement is likely to dislocate the daily schedule of the software employees.

Those who are living in the area not only in IT corridor but also in Falaknuma, Chatrinaka and Chandrayangutta, will have to put up with the police and their insistent demands. The guardians of law and have already asked the households to inform them if they have visitors and all the ongoing building constructions to be carried out under the watchful eyes of the police. "This is security paranoia. Ivanka's visit is still a week away and the police have become hyperactive," said a soft skills trainer who lives in the area close to the IT corridor.

There will be round-the-clock patrolling on the entire stretch of IT corridor and the road that leads to Falaknuma. There would be mounted policemen too keep strangers away. The police have already given instructions that there should be no outsiders in the area. If anyone arrives from any other place, they would have to report to the police first.

A private sector employee said that in the coming days the security would be further tightened, and it might be difficult for the residents to move around. Though police are saying that the restriction on movement of people on roads would apply only during the time when Ivanka will be going out or coming into the hotel, the residents feel this may not be all that simple. "I am sure there would be too much frisking, too many checks everywhere. I want this inconvenience to end as early as possible," he said.

As Ivanka would have her own security, the police wonder what kind of demands would the US Secret Service would impose on them. Already, they have made the entire area sterile and area domination is now on, yet her security might want even more stringent measures. ""They have not yet arrived in the city. But once they are here, they would be coming up with too many demands," one official said, but pointed out that they were doing all that was possible to make Ivanka's stay in Hyderabad safe.