KARIMNAGAR: The district police machinery has made elaborate arrangements for the second phase of gram panchayat elections to be held in the naxalite-affected Jagtial and Sircilla revenue divisions on Wednesday.

Police has identified and categorised 103 `sensitive' villages, 46 `hyper-sensitive' villages, 222 naxalite-affected villages and 33 `trouble' villages in the two revenue divisions. All the polling stations will be manned by armed police force. Apart from this, police pickets will be posted in the `sensitive' and `hyper-sensitive' villages.

Disclosing this to newsmen here on Tuesday, Superintendent of Police Devendra Singh Chouhan said that the police was in complete control of the naxalite-affected villages due to the massive combing operations conducted since last one month in view of the elections. He said that striking forces and mobile parties have been constituted for the elections. Besides, checkposts have been put up in the revenue divisions' borders to check on flow of liquor as well as influx of anti-social elements into the villages.

VHF sets

He said that special police parties combing the forests have been provided with sophisticated satellite phones, VHF (very high frequency) sets to closely monitor the situation. The district police had been using satellite phones for the past four months in its anti-naxal operations.

In the wake of some polling personnel abstaining from duties in the first phase of polling, he said that ``there is no threat from naxalites in the district and people have rejected them for obstructing development in villages. There was good turnout of voters during elections in the district''. Despite naxalism slowly fading out in the district, the police was leaving no stone unturned to ensure a smooth conduct of elections.

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