Tourist police on toes for pilgrims

The tourist police specially trained in soft skills and the like to help the pilgrims are now busy as the portals of two of the four shrines- Gangotri and Yamunotri located in Uttarkashi district -reopened on Wednesday after the around six- month winter break. One of them deployed along the route to Gangotri said that he is enjoying his work as the pilgrims have started streaming in. “The training we received in soft skill is helping us now as we are helping the pilgrims  with a smooth pilgrimage,” he said. Notably, 170 trained tourist police have been deployed to facilitate the pilgrims at 65 tourist police centres situated along the Char Dham Yatra routes in the State.

Uttarkashi Superintendent of police Dadanpal said that with the opening of the portals of the two revered shrines,  the pilgrims have started coming  to the district on way to the shrines.“The district police have made fool- proof security and other arrangements to facilitate the pilgrims visiting the district. Additional police forces, including PAC jawans, traffic police personnel, tourist  cops and SDRF personnel  have been deployed at important places across the district.  Traffic police have been deployed at eight places in Uttarkashi. Besides, adequate number of parking venues has been set up. Two parking venues with capacity for 250 vehicles have been set up at Gangotri while six parking venues with the capacity of 150 vehicles have been set up at Yamontri/Jankichatti region,” he said.

It is learnt that 15 companies and two and half platoons of PAC have been deployed  along the char dham yatra routes. Besides, 79 temporary police posts have been set up along the pilgrimage  routes. Five sub-teams of SDRF have been deployed in Uttarkashi to conduct rescue and relief operation in case of emergency while 28 trained tourist police have been deployed at 14 places to facilitate the pilgrims. Notably, portals of Kedarnath shrine would open on April 29 and  those of  Badrinath would open on April 30.

A Tehri-based police officer said that three sub-teams of SDRF have been deployed to conduct rescue and relief operation in the Tehri district  in case of emergency while 10 tourist cops have been deployed at six places across the district. Besides, some personnel have been deployed to keep traffic smooth  all through the pilgrimage. 

A Chamoli-based police officer said that four sub teams of SDRF have been deployed at various places across the district which houses the Badrinath shrine. Besides, 18 tourist police have been deployed at nine different places and three parking venues of the capacity  of 480 vehicles have been set up  around Badrinath shrine. In Rudraprayag district too where the Kedarnath shrine is located, elaborate arrangements have been put into place to ensure a glitch- free pilgrimage.

Four sub- teams of SDRF have been deployed while 14 tourist police personnel have been deployed at eight different places across Rudraprayag district. To ensure smooth traffic, traffic police personnel have been deployed at 42 places across Rudraprayag district.