Spl Secy Home reviews yatra arrangements

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 4: Union Special Secretary, Internal Security, Ajay Chadha chaired a high level meeting of senior police, para-military, Army, intelligence and civil officers at Police Headquarters here this afternoon and took stock of the arrangements made for ensuing Shri Amarnath Ji Yatra.
Mr. Chadha was here on his 2-day visit to the State.
Addressing the meeting, Mr. Chadha stressed for greater synergy among all security agencies to ensure smooth and peaceful yatra. He asked the officers present in the meeting to mobilize their field agencies for maintaining close coordination and intelligence gathering so that appropriate steps are taken well in advance to ensure safety of the pilgrims.
He said that safety of the yatris should be prime concern of the authorities and proper registration should be strictly adhered. No yatri should be permitted to proceed without registration. Taking the benefit of previous experiences, there should be more improvement this year in the arrangements for the convenience of pilgrims, he added.
Director General of Police (DGP), K. Rajendra Kumar apprised the meeting about the police deployment and other related efforts made for smooth conduct of the yatra. Detailed power point presentations were given by IGP Kashmir S M Sahai and other security agencies about the arrangement put in place by them.
DGP informed the meeting that a communication network from Lakhanpur to holy cave would be established well in advance to facilitate communication and information sharing among various agencies involved with the yatra. He said that joint control rooms would be setup at all important places on both routes of the holy cave and frequent joint meetings of different security agencies would be arranged frequently to discuss various issues regarding smooth conduct of yatra.
The meeting, besides the security arrangements also discussed deployment of manpower, control mechanism, availability of telecommunication equipment and facilities at helipads, medical camps and availability of essentials, traffic management, disaster management and services of SDRF volunteers.
Expressing his satisfaction over the arrangements put in place by JKP and other agencies, Mr. Chadha said that in view of the changing scenario, new initiatives should be adopted to bring more improvement in the arrangements. Additional requirements should be worked out and necessary arrangements made well in advance. He assured the meeting that all assistance would be extended to meet the requirements and make the yatra successful.
Among others, the high level meeting was attended by Principal Secretary (Home), B. R. Sharma, Special DG CRPF Anirudh Uppal, GOC Victor Force, Maj. Gen. R. R. Nimbhorkar, Joint Secretary (K), K. Skandan, ADGPs, Dr. Ram Lubhaya, Dr. S. P. Vaid and D. R. Doley, Divisional Commissioner (Kashmir), Asgar Samoon IGPs, S. M. Sahai, Owais Ahmed, S. S. Tomar, B. N. Ramesh, Sudhir Paratab Singh, P. K. Patiel, B. Srinivas, A. K. Chowdhary, Rauf-ul-Hassan, M. Sulaiman Salaria, K. K. Saini, Muneer Ahmed Khan and A. Q. Manhas, Deputy Director IB, Mahesh Dixit, DIGs A. S. Bali, Vijay Kumar, Shakeel Ahmed Beig, Ahfadaul Mujtaba and Rajinder Gupta, AIGPs Ghulam Hassan Bhat, A. A. Kakroo and Shabir Ahmed and other police officers.