COIMBATORE: Coimbatore superintendent of police V Badrinarayanan said that the Coimbatore District (Rural) police have kept around 30 people, who allegedly have links with fundamental outfits, under shadow watch, and four of them were interrogated following the blast.
During the event of handing over recovered mobile phones to the owners on Saturday at the SP’s office, he said that they are taking efforts to bring all communally sensitive areas in Mettupalayam and Pollachi under CCTV surveillance.
“Along with this communal alert, we are concentrating to curtail regular crimes, so all station house officers are asked to strengthen CCTV surveillance at all major locations in northern Coimbatore, from where many cases of housebreaking were reported during Deepavali,” the SP said.
“We have planned to bring the entire stretch of Mettupalayam road (Thudiyalur to Mettupalayam) under surveillance by installing CCTV cameras on centre medians and major junctions would be monitored with the help of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras to detect traffic violations. We will use CSR funds to carry out this plan,” he added. He returned 604 missing mobile phones worth Rs 90 lakh to the owners at his office on Friday.
Action on drug peddling
Following the event, speaking with reporters he said that they have been taking stringent action against drugs in the past 10 months.
“This year, we have seized drugs worth Rs 75 lakh, including 550 kg of marijuana. Apart from that, synthetic drugs worth Rs 19 lakh, including LSD and MDMA were seized with the help of college students. A total of 515 ganja peddlers were arrested in this period and five of them have been detained under Goondas Act,” he said, adding that they have initiated anti-drugs club at 65 colleges, which will be expanded to hostel level to curtail the supply of contraband among students.