PASUMPON (RAMANATHAPURAM)
‘Thevar jayanthi’, marking the 55th ‘guru puja’ (death anniversary) and the 110th birth anniversary of freedom fighter Muthuramalinga Thevar, passed off peacefully on monday as the district police threw a massive security cordon, deploying about 8,000 police personnel, in the district.
After the district administration clamped prohibitory order, invoking Section 144 of the Cr.P.C., banning all types of hired vehicles from carrying volunteers to the memorial here and imposed restrictions, the police posted pickets along all the 100 banned routes and 60-odd sensitive villages and ensured that the communally sensitive event passed off peacefully.
The technical wing of the police monitored movement of vehicles and crowd through digital eyes by installing more than 300 CCTV cameras and check-posts on district borders. For the first time, the district police used Face Detection Cameras, which automatically identified known accused in the southern region and alerted the police personnel at the special control room.
The Centre for Aerospace Research of Madras Institute of Technology, Anna University, deployed a ‘tethered copter’, an advanced version of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), to help the police. The images beamed by the UAV, fitted with ‘30X zoom camera’, covered a radius of five kms around Pasumpon and helped the police in crowd management.
The police had also deployed bomb detection and disposal squads, which carried out anti-sabotage checks at the memorial site and other sensitive areas with the help of sniffer dogs. “Everything went on peacefully and no untoward incident was reported in any part of the district,” Superintendent of Police Omprakash Meena told The Hindu. The event was peaceful, thanks to the cooperation of all, Collector S. Natarajan said.
Additional Director General of Police Vijay Kumar camped here and monitored the security, while four IGs and four DIGs and 17 SPs supervised the security after dividing the district into more than dozen sectors.
Torch rallies, mulaipari and milk pot processions and padayatras were confined within Pasumpon. Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation operated additional bus services from various villages to the memorial for the benefit of the villagers on Sunday and Monday.