Agartala, Sep 26: Security has been stepped up in Khowai district ahead of the September 28 elections to the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) Village Committees, with five additional companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) deployed for polling in 53 stations across five blocks, Superintendent of Police Bogati Jagadeeswar Reddy said.
Reddy said the five CAPF companies were in addition to the civil police and Tripura State Rifles (TSR) personnel being deployed for the election.
A coordination meeting of senior officials of the district police and various central security forces and intelligence agencies was held at the Khowai SP’s conference hall on Saturday to review the deployment and law-and-order arrangements.
Officials from the CRPF, BSF, Assam Rifles, TSR, the state police, Intelligence Bureau and other security agencies attended the meeting.
“The objective is to ensure that there is no incident of violence, even a minor one, during the election,” the SP said.
He said the district has 171 polling stations in all, of which polling will be held in 53 centres on September 28. The polling stations are spread across five blocks – Tulasikhar, Padmabil, Kalyanpur, Teliamura and Mungiakami.
The district police have identified sensitive locations and additional forces will be deployed at such places to ensure that voters can exercise their franchise without fear, Reddy said.
He added that personnel from the constable level to the SP would remain engaged in patrolling and security duties, while a grid-based response system has been put in place to ensure that any incident reported from a location is responded to by the designated force.
The SP said the coordination meeting also provided an opportunity for different agencies to share their assessment of sensitive areas and discuss measures being taken by the district police.
“I am confident that there will be no violence. The district police are fully prepared and we will not allow any violent incident to happen,” Reddy said.
Polling for the TTAADC Village Committee elections is scheduled across the ADC areas on September 28 from 7 am to 4 pm. The State Election Commission has notified elections to 587 Village Committees comprising 2,634 constituencies and 4,597 seats, with 1,550 polling stations across the state.
The elections will be conducted through ballot papers. Counting is scheduled for October 5, with the entire election process to be completed by October 8.
