The Greater Chennai City Police has announced that it has made stringent security arrangements to ensure a free and fair poll on May 16.

A release from the City Police Commissioner’s office said that a total of 28 assembly constituencies and six partial constituencies comes under its jurisdiction. About 12,500 personnel drawn from police, home guards, retired police and ex-army personnel would be deployed on duty in 7,552 polling booths and 544 mobile parties. Nearly 298 booths have been identified as vulnerbale and additional 1,360 Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) would be deployed in these locations.

In addition, 520 Striking Forces totalling to 4,500 policemen, would be deployed on election duty.

Four Additional Commissioners, six Joint Commissioners, 21 Deputy Commissioners, 78 Assistant Commissioners and 310 Police Inspectors have been given striking forces to attend to any law and order problems.

They would be on the move right from the commencement of polling. “Apart from this, the areas coming under each police station has been divided into various sectors and the responsibilities have been vested to patrol vehicles and sector beats to attend to law and order issues at the early stage so as to pre-empt escalation of law and order problems”,the release said.

All the Striking Forces were connected with Control rooms over VHF communication and four control rooms were functioning at the Chennai Police Commissioner’s office to monitor the movement of forces according to the requirements