180 RAF personnel arrive in Puri for mega festival

Three companies of the Rapid Action Force (RAF), consisting of 180 personnel, arrived in Puri on Saturday to assist Odisha police in smooth conduct of Rath Yatra on June 20 and Bahuda Yatra on June 28.
Additional director general Rajesh Kumar, inspector general (central range) Ashish Kumar Singh and Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh held a meeting with senior officers of the RAF in Puri and discussed strategies to control crowd during the mega festival.
Puri SP briefed the RAF personnel about their responsibility outside the Jagannath Temple. The RAF personnel will be deployed around the cordon of each of the three chariots. Their specific duty is to control the crowd outside the chariot cordon.
“The RAF and state police will work in coordination for better crowd management. We appeal to devotees to cooperate with us,” said the SP Sources said the state police and RAF personnel have been asked to be courteous with devotees, who will throng the Grand Road in lakhs to pull the chariots from the Jagannath Temple to the Gundicha Temple.
A dedicated wing, consisting of senior police officers, will be formed to gather intelligence and coordinate with different intelligence agencies in the country to avoid any untoward incident during Rath Yatra. Senior IPS officers have been given specific tasks to look after the traffic, crowd control and law and order during the mega festival.