JEYPORE: Ahead of the fifth and final phase panchayat elections on Thursday, security has been beefed up to ensure peaceful polls in the Maoist-infested Lamtaput and Boipariguda blocks in Koraput.
Besides deployment of SOG, DVF and BSF personnel, 40 mobile patrolling teams have been pressed into service to keep a vigil on any suspicious activity.
Check posts have been erected in Chatua, Padwa and Chandili to monitor the movement of outsiders. Voting for two zilla parishad posts, 20 sarpanches and as many samiti members and 244 ward members will be held in 245 booths in these blocks. Sixty per cent of the booths have been categorised as ‘sensitive’.
Soon after Maoist dumps were detected by BSF in Machkund and Onakadeli pockets earlier this week pointing at possible Naxal disturbance during the last phase of polling here, surveillance has been heightened.
However, despite regular surveillance and frequent combing operations by central forces in bordering Boipariguda and Mathili of Malkangiri, Naxal groups of neighbouring Sukma in Chhattisgarh have made their presence felt in Chipakur, Dandabadi, Ramgiri, Haldikund, Dasmantpur, and Tangniguda areas besides using Ramgiri forest and Tulsipahada near Boipariguda as hideouts.
Lamtaput too is under constant threat from Maoists of Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) operating in Koraput and Malkangiri.
“With Maoists leaving a trail of violence and threatening the poll process, security arrangements have been beefed up in Boipariguda and Lamtaput to ensure free and fair elections on Thursday,” said Jeypore SDPO AA Behera and Nandapur SDPO Sanjay Mohapatra.