By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: Hyderabad city has come under an unprecedented security blanket as authorities made elaborate arrangements for Sunday centralized Ganesh immersion procession, which hundreds of thousands of people attend every year.
This year the security is specially high as the procession is coinciding with the month of Ramadan which is marked by the heightened activity in the Muslim dominated old city, the route of the main procession.
For the first time 25,000 police personnel are being deployed all along the route from Balapur in old city via Charminar-Mecca Masjid area to Hussain Sagar lake, covering a distance of more than 15 kms.
The Hyderabad city police commissioner B Prasad Rao along with senior officers undertook a visit of the entire route to inspect the arrangements put in the place including the barricading of the route. The route will be closed for the general traffic and traffic will be diverted at 62 places to ensure smooth flow of the processions along with thousands of big Ganesh idols kept on the trailers and trucks.
The security has specially been tightened this year in view of the intelligence warnings that the terrorist elements and the Maoists can try to target the procession to create a massive law and order problem. The procession has sparked off Hindu Muslim tension and violence several times in the past, the worst being in 1984 when row of shops and commercial establishments along the route were burnt during the procession.
Apart from the 10,000-strong city police, forces have also been mobilized form the other districts. Several companies of CRPF and Rapid Action Force have also been deployed.
To keep any mischief mongers under the check, police will be watching the entire route and record the proceedings through 95 close circuit cameras. Cameras kept on the top of the vehicles will also be used at different places.
No vehicle other than those carrying the idols will be allowed near the Hussain Sagar lake from all directions as more than 25 cranes have taken position to immerse the idols in the lake.
Hyderabad Ganesh Utsav Samiti has said that the procession will start with the Balapur Ganesh and culminate with the immersion of the 45 feet high Ganesh idol from Khairatabad.
The centralized procession, which had started in 1978 under the patronage of the then Congress Chief Minister M Channa Reddy has now grown into the biggest such procession in the country as an estimated 5000 big and several thousand small idols along with lakhs of people participate in it. To deal with any emergency or mishap, 42 ambulances are being kept ready along the route, the additional commissioner traffic Surender Babu said.
The special focus of the security is in the sensitive parts from Ali Abad, Shah Ali Banda, Mecca Masjid, Charminar to Afzal Gunj where several religious places of Muslims are located. The police will stop the Ganesh procession away from the mosques if their passage clashes with the Muslim prayers. All the mosques on the route have been covered with curtains and additional security posses have been deployed there.
The police were maintaining extra vigil as the Ganesh procession is coinciding with the holy month of Ramadan when the turnout of people in the mosques is very high.
So far 12 people have died during the Ganesh festival this year, four of them electrocuted in Pahadi Shareef area of Hyderabad when the vehicle carrying idol came in contact with live electricity wire. One youth drowned in Hussain Sagar lake during immersion and seven deaths were reported from Adilabad and West Godavari districts.