Tight security for Moharram, Ganesh Nimajjan

​Hyderabad: The police is making tight security arrangements for the two major events this week, Moharram Matham procession on Friday and Ganesh idol’s immersion in Hussain Sagar Lake on Sunday. The police officials of various wings of city police, in all five zones under city Commissionerate, have been sensitised about the two events in the last 45 days.

Utilities including Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), Metro Water works and TSPDCL have completed 99 per cent of their works. Barricading and minor works and repairs will be completed by Friday, for the immersion procession.

According to City Commissioner of Police Anjani Kumar, he along with GHMC Commissioner M Dana Kishore jointly inspected and assessed the preparations for Ganesh procession on the route from Balapur to Tank Bund, which is 18 kilometres. He expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made. He said it is expected that about 10 to 15 lakh people would participate in the festivities. There will be 14 points at Upper Tank bund and NTR Marg for immersion of idols.

As the ninth day of Ganesh immersion and Moharram Matham processions will be on Friday, in Reinbazar, Dabeerpura, Charminar and Mirchowk, security has been further beefed up. This year each idol that is registered with city police is allotted a QR code which will be helpful in monitoring the coverage of patrolling and visit of senior officers.

Holding and quick release hooks used in cranes are used for immersion of the idols which will reduce the time of immersion by 60 to 70 per cent. It will save four to six minutes while immersing each idol. In one-hour 25 immersions can be completed when compared to earlier when it used to be 10 immersions. As many as 160 ARS hooks are fixed to all the cranes.

The police have installed more than 8,000 cameras to cover each and every corner of the procession in the city and all cameras are connected to the network and its viewing facility is provided to all the officers with mobile applications on their fingertips.

A total of 450 CCTVs have been installed for the main route of procession from Balapur to Tank Bund. For Khairatabad Ganesh idol procession for a distance of 2.5 km, 60 CCTVs have been installed and will be monitored by three level of viewing at respective police stations, DCP office, CP office.

Around 14,500 idols have been installed across the city as per records. If the other non-registered idols are included, the number would come to around 25,000 to 26,000 in all 11 days of immersion. Police officials held discussions with Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi leaders and with the Khairatabad Ganesh Utsav committee and came to a conclusion that the procession and the immersion of Khairatabad Ganesha will be completed in the same day. In 2015, the idol was immersed the next day, in 2016, the idol was immersed at 1 pm and in 2017, the idol immersion was completed at 2:15 pm. This time the Khairtabad Ganesh procession will start at 5:30 pm on Sunday and it will be immersed at around 11:30 pm the same day.

A total of 14,000 police personnel will be deployed on the final day of immersion. As many as 13 units of Greyhounds and 2 units of Octopus kept as standby for any emergency. Forces of all the units of city police namely law and order, traffic, special branch, task force, city security wing, city armed reserve have been pressed into service for the bandobust. Emergency response teams like Vajra vehicle, Gas squad, water cannon, QRT (Quick Reaction Team) will be stationed at strategic locations in the route. The forces and the officers were chosen for the bandobust on their previous experience of knowledge on the sensitive and hypersensitive areas.

As many as 310 hypersensitive and 605 sensitive places have been identified for which pickets have been posted. Total 410 mobile parties are moving in the area for smooth conduct of the Ganesh festival. The city security wing is deploying 16 bomb disposal teams, two access control teams at important Ganesh pandals and Ganesh temples.