Sabarimala shrine to open tomorrow under heavy police cover

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Almost half of the state’s total police personnel will be assigned Sabarimala duty during the Mandalam-Makaravilakku season that begins on Friday.
As many as 21,000 police personnel will be deployed in four phases. Each phase, spanning over 15 days, will have 5,200 personnel, maintain law and order.
The total strength of the police force is close to 50,000.
The first-of-its-kind of deployment of such a large posse of police personnel was necessitated by the opposition to a Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all ages to visit the Sree Dharmashashta Temple.
The first phase of deployment would begin on November 16, the day on which the temple opens, and would end on November 30. The tight security arrangement would continue until January 16, when the temple would close after Makaravilakku.
The temple and its premises have been divided into six security zones, each managed by an IG or a DIG. The senior officers, too, would be either replaced or shuffled.
Police have categorized Sabarimala and the adjoining places into separate zones, Nilackal, Pamba, Marakkoottam, Sannidhanam, Vadasserikkara to Nilackal and Erumeli.
During the first phase, IGs Ashok Yadav, Vijay Sakhare and DIG Anup Kuruvilla John will be in charge of the six zones, with two zones under each officer. The second phase would under the charge of IGs P Vijayan, M R Ajith Kumar, Vijay Sakhare and district police chief (Kottayam) Hari Shankar
The team would be replaced during the third phase by DIG S Surendran, IGs Balram Kumar Upadhyaya and Vijay Sakhare, and Hari Shankar.
IGs Dinendra Kashyap, S Sreejith, DIG Anup Kuruvilla John and Hari Shankar would take care of the zones during the final phase.
In addition to the IGs and DIGs, SPs, currently posted in various posts, would be on Sabarimala special duty.
District police chiefs G Siva Vikram (Kannur), A Srinivas (Kasaragod), Pratheesh Kumar (Malappuram), M K Pushkaran (Kozhikode rural), Yatish Chandra (Thrissur city), superintendents of police J Jayanath, H Manjunath, V G Vinod Kumar, V Ajith, R Sukeshan, V G Vinod Kumar, A S Raju, B K Prasanthan Kani, P B Rajeev, P S Sabu and Sunil Babu and ASP Sujith Das would also be deployed.
Women police battalions would also be deployed in adequate numbers at Nilackal and Pamba, Central paramilitary forces would be on standby. Pilgrims, preferring to walk, would be allowed to Pamba from Nilackal from 10 am on Friday. The first KSRTC bus would leave Nilackal for Pamba at 12 noon.
Media vehicles would be allowed beyond Nilackal to Pamba only from 8 pm the previous night, and they could be parked at the U-turn after Pamba police station.