Hyderabad: More than 25,000 policemen have been deployed here as the city police are on high alert for the Ganesh Chaturthi festival beginning today and Ramadan which began on Tuesday.
As the two major festivals are coinciding and in view of the recent blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, the police are not taking any chances and have called additional forces from other parts of Andhra Pradesh.
"Recent blasts in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Bangalore suggest that terrorist organisations are active. Hyderabad city also suffered blasts last year. In view of the prevailing security environment and increased threat from CPI (Maoists) and terrorist organisations, it is imperative to make proper security arrangements during these festivals," said Hyderabad police commissioner B. Prasada Rao.
Arrangements
He told a news conference here yesterday that all wings of the city police were being involved in the security arrangements while management committees of temples and mosques and organisers of Ganesh pandals and others were being sensitised on security to ensure smooth conduct of the festivals.
Ganesh Chaturthi, one of the biggest festivals here, is beginning on Wednesday. More than 12,000 Ganesha statues will be installed across the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.
The festival will end on September 14 when the statues will be taken out in a mammoth procession and immersed in the Hussain Sagar lake in the heart of the city and dozens of other tanks on the outskirts.
Annual event
The procession brings the city to a grinding halt as over a million people come out on the streets for the annual event. As the procession has been marred by communal violence in the sensitive old city area in the past, the police make elaborate arrangements every year.
With the festival coinciding with Ramadan and in view of the recent blasts, police were maintaining a tight vigil.
The city had also witnessed three bomb blasts last year killing over 50 people. While nine people were killed in a blast during Friday prayers at the historic Makkah Masjid on May 18, two near-simultaneous blasts at a public park and a popular eatery had claimed 43 lives.
