Security scaled up in UP for Muharram processions

Lucknow, July 16 (IANS) Security arrangements have been scaled up across Uttar Pradesh to maintain law and order during Muharram processions on Ashura, the tenth day of the mourning month, to be observed on Wednesday.A senior police official said that a total of 14 companies of central paramilitary forces and 151 companies of Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) have been deployed in different districts for Muharram processions on Wednesday.He said that the processions taken out on 10th Muharram are very sensitive following which elaborate security arrangements have been made.The official further said that vigilance has been intensified in communally sensitive districts and the officials concerned have been asked to make necessary police arrangements on the routes of Tazia processions as well as mourning places.He said as many as 89,000 tazias are being put up at different places on separate dates during the ongoing Muharram month from July 7 during which tazia processions are being taken out across the state. Of these, the highest 36,000 tazias are in the 11 districts of the Gorakhpur zone which include Bahraich, Balrampur, Gonda, Shravasti, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Siddharth Nagar, Deoria, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj and Kushinagar.Around 23,000 processions on separate dates of Muharram are being taken out in nine districts of the Bareilly zone including Bareilly, Rampur, Sambhal, Bijnor, Amroha, Moradabad, Budaun, Pilibhit and Shahjahanpur during the month, the official said.Lucknow is equally sensitive in terms of Muharram processions so special police deployment has been done in the state capital, he added.Director General of Police (DGP) Prashant Kumar through videoconferencing has issued detailed guidelines to the officials of sensitive districts and district police chiefs have been asked to ensure that no new processions or routes would be allowed.He said all posters and banners from the processions’ routes have been removed to avert any law-and-order problem and maintain peace. As per him, construction materials and other things lying on the routes have also been removed.He said that the officials had been told to counter rumour-mongering through social media platforms. Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras have been installed on routes on which Muharram processions would be taken out. Police personnel would be equipped with body-worn cameras and drones would also be used for aerial vigil, he added.–IANSamita/sha