15 drones to keep an eye on polling stations in Hyderabad
Polling in Hyderabad district will be monitored with the help of 15 drones tted with surveillance cameras on May 13, the designated day for the Parliamentary and Assembly byelections for Telangana.
In view of the e«cacy of drones during the Legislative Assembly elections last year, election authorities have decided to increase the drone surveillance for the Parliamentary polls, o«cials informed while addressing a media conference on Friday.
Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad, K. Srinivas Reddy said the drones will cover 1,046 polling stations that have been identied as critical, of which 363 are sensitive with regard to law and order, while the remaining are where absentee, dead and shifted voters are high in number.
A majority of the critical polling stations will be covered by Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel, while a few will see the deployment of Telangana State Special Armed Police. Twenty-ve companies of CAPF have arrived in the State for the elections, and together with the State police and the home guards who have arrived from Karnataka, more than 15,000 uniformed personnel will be working for peaceful conduct of polling in the city.
A total of 376 routes have been identied which will cover all the 4,027 polling stations in 688 polling locations. Law and Order pickets will be set up at 192 locations where a close watch will be kept on voters being transported from one place to the other. In addition, 93 tra«c interception teams too will be at work for the same purpose. District Election O«cer and GHMC Commissioner D. Ronald Rose said the last 72 hours before polling day are critical for peaceful conduct of polls. Training sessions for polling sta have been completed, he said.