The Hindu : Front Page : Elaborate security arrangements for polling in Kannur, Kasaragod

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Elaborate security arrangements for polling in Kannur, Kasaragod

Staff Reporter

Four more poll observers appointed in Kannur

INSTILLING CONFIDENCE: Police personnel taking out a route march in Kannur on Tuesday as part of law and order measures for the polling.

KANNUR: Unprecedented security arrangements are in place for the third and final round of polling in the State on Saturday.

The third phase covers 15 constituencies in Kannur and Kasaragod districts.

CPI (M) State Secretariat member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Congress (S) president Kadannappally Ramachandran and the former Minister K. Sudhakaran are among the 85 candidates in the fray in the districts.

Since all the 2,346 polling stations have been declared `sensitive,' the authorities have mobilised a 15,000-strong police force to maintain law and order. The polling will begin at 7 a.m.

The Koothuparamba police have registered a case of attempt to murder against 30 Left Democratic Front (LDF) workers in connection with the attack on the United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate in Koothuparamba Assembly constituency Sajiv Joseph on Monday evening.

The police were continuing raids on different parts of Koothuparamba to nab those behind the attack on Mr. Joseph, who have been admitted to a hospital at Thalassery with injuries.

Meanwhile, four more observers have been appointed in the district in the wake of the attack on the candidate.

In Kannur, the district police have already initiated elaborate security arrangements in connection with the polling. Superintendent of Police Mathew Polycarp, in a press release here, said that five armed police personnel from the State and outside would be deployed at each of the 1,542 polling booths in the district on the polling day. Vehicles equipped with wireless sets and mobile phones would conduct round-the-clock patrol.

In Kasaragod, over 4,000 police personnel, including paramilitary forces from the other States, had been deployed. As many as 365 polling booths out of the 843 booths in the five Assembly segments in the district had been classified sensitive.

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