MULUGU: Around 10,000 police personnel from across the State have been deployed at the Medaram Jatara. Close to one crore devotees will be attending the gathering. Devotees have started arriving at Medaram on Sunday to seek blessings of Sammakka and Saralamma. The biennial Jatara, touted to be the world’s biggest tribal festival, will be conducted from February 5 to 8. The Laknavaram Lake water was released to Jampanna Vagu on Sunday. After taking the holy dip in Jampanna Vagu, the devotees will go to seek the blessing of the tribal deities. People are arriving before the Jatara begins as it will become difficult to have a peaceful darshan after the Jatara commences.

The police have installed 350 CCTVs at bathing ghats, altars, and other key points and they are connected to command and control room at ITDA camp office where officers will be monitoring the screens round the clock. According to the police, the jatara area is spread over seven kilometre that include various villages around Medaram. The police force includes three Police Commissioners, each from Warangal, Ramagundem and Khammam, six Superintendent of Police, 30 Assistant Superintendent of Police, 80 Deputy Superintendent of Police, 300 Circle Inspectors, 750 Sub-Inspectors. The police force has been divided into 20 sectors, said officials.

Speaking to Express, Mulugu district’s Superintendent of Police (SP), Sangramsingh G Patil, said that 1,000 women police personnel have been deployed at the jatara. These women police personnel are divided into various teams and they are attached to the sector officers for monitoring. “Women police will mainly focus on protecting women devotees in crowded areas and queue lines at the jatara,” said Patil.
The policemen will patrol through the crowd on 100 two-wheelers. He said that the motto was to ensure an incident-free jatara and hence they set up a police camp at every four kilometres, said Patil.

Meanwhile, Full Additional Charge(FAC) collector of Mulugu district, RV Karnan, said that the police are also monitoring high-resolution satellite images, procured from the State remote sensing centre. The images will help them in monitoring the crowd movement at Jampanna Vagu, RTC bus station, Chilakala Gutta, Reddigudem, Kannepalli, and Oorattam areas.