JK News Today
Jammu, January 27 : The Jammu and Kashmir Government on Friday gave a detailed account of what happened during the course of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra stretch from Banihal to Kashmir which may have led to an impression that adequate security arrangements were not in place and it assured that all security arrangements were in place to give security cover to the “ special event.”
In a statement that explained that how this impression of the inadequate security came into being , Additional Chief Secretary , Home ( Financial Commissioner) Raj Kumar Goyal , spotlighted the point that the crowds that were supposed to have returned to Banihal, as per the plan worked out between the organisers of the yatra and the J&K police and security agencies, deviated from the past practice .
The statement made it plain that the concerns relating to the security arrangements for Bharat Jodo Yatra highlighted in a press conference on Friday in Kashmir, have been “taken note of with all the seriousness it deserves.”
It read : “ As per the agreed arrangements between the Police and the Organizers of Bharat Jodo Yatra, only the identified crowd duly frisked were allowed to be the part of the core of the Yatra.
It has been learnt that contrary to the arrangements worked out between the Organizers and the security establishment, a large portion of the crowd from the Banihal side who were supposed to have returned to Banihal, rushed to the Kashmir side. Needless to say, security related resources were deployed visualizing the size of the anticipated crowd, after discussions with the Organizers. As per the Organizers and the practice during the Yatra so far in J&K, there are 2 components to the Yatra; i) Participants permanently travelling with Shri Rahul Gandhi Ji and (ii) then the other is local component which becomes the part of the Yatra on different days in different stretches.
What I want to mention is that the participants of the previous sector usually do not join the participants of the other side. In this particular case, the organizers themselves had neither anticipated nor planned the Banihal crowd to join the Kashmir stretch. The size of the crowd because of this spill over became larger than planned that led to pressure on the available security resources, which may have created an impression as if security arrangements were not in place, “
Goyal said.
“However, I have just ascertained that 15 companies of Para Military Forces and 10 companies of J&K Police were in deployment as we speak. It comprises road opening parties for 12 kms of todays’ Yatra stretch from Ujroo to Vessu. Positioning of security personnel on 39 laterals i.e. feeder roads connecting the Yatra route and 40 high-rises being covered with appropriate weaponry. I have been told during over 200 kms long road stretches between Lakanpur to Banihal passing through several districts Kathua, Samba, Jammu, Udhampur and Ramban. Spread over more than 6 days, it had been secured by deploying a combination of CRPF and J&K Police to cover the route, the places of stay and the venues where the public addresses had been planned. A comprehensive deployment plan had been drawn wherein individual police officers by name have been assigned to various parts of the work in topical sense as well as in terms of points and places of duty dividing the route into Zones, sub-zones etc. Additionally, plain clothesman from security wing of the J&K Police continue to remain involved at places of stay and to ensure anti-sabotage checks and access control to the extent possible in a very challenging and special event like this,” Goyal stated.
“ The Government is acutely mindful of the security concerns nevertheless and all arrangements have been made to ensure the best possible security for the Yatra., he said
