MYSURU: Amidst growing outrage over verbal and physical assault on many women witnessing the Dasara open street festival here, it has now come to light that for the event attended by nearly one lakh people, the police department had deployed just 250 personnel on the entire stretch of the road.
Mysuru Police Commissioner A Subrahmanyeswara Rao maintained on Tuesday that they had taken adequate measures. “For the 700-metre stretch of Krishnaraja Boulevard where the event was hosted, we had posted 250 police personnel. Almost every 10m, there was a police personnel, we also had the mobile command centre at the venue,” he said.
A member of the team that organised the event, however, said the number of police personnel deployed at the event was much less than what they had expected. According to him, deploying more number of police personnel would have helped to prevent such incidents. The Police Commissioner said the event was a learning experience for the city police to ensure the safety of people next year. “Next year, we are thinking of restricting the movement through identity check and we will be installing barricades and proper entry-exit signs,” he said. Police are taking extra measures to prevent untoward incidents during the remaining days of Dasara celebrations which will culminate on Friday, Vijayadashami.
“During Jamboo Savari, we will post one policeman for every 30m and people who create problems will be removed from the spot,” he said. The top cop added they have received a written complaint from one woman who was hit by a man at the open street event.
“We were able to identify the registration number of the vehicle used by the culprit, we are pursuing the matter,” the top cop said.“We are monitoring the CCTV visuals from the spot as well as the visuals from the drone camera. So far, we have not found any instances of harassment, but we are examining them closely,” he said.
To nab the culprits, the Police Commissioner has requested the survivors to come forward and help the police. “We are not insisting on anyone to lodge a complaint, it would be helpful if they could come with their version of the incident that would help us nab the criminals. We assure that we will protect the identity of the survivors,” he said.