Modi-Abe meet: 9,000 cops to keep vigil in Ahmedabad today

Ahmedabad, Sep 13: Over 9,000 police personnel will fan across strategic locations in the city to secure it for the two-day visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe beginning today, officials said.

Tight security arrangements have been put in place as the two leaders are expected to attend several programmes over the next two days, including the annual Indo-Japanese annual Summit, they said.

As Modi and Abe are also scheduled to visit Gandhinagar on Thursday, over 2,000 policemen will be deployed in the state capital to guard them and other dignitaries. Soon after their arrival at the airport tomorrow afternoon, Modi and Abe would take part in an 8 km road show that would terminate at Sabarmati Ashram, where apostle of peace Mahatma Gandhi spent considerable part of his life.

Later, they will visit a 16th century mosque in the evening and have dinner at a heritage restaurant in the eastern part of the city. According to Balram Meena, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Control Room, around 70 per cent of the city's police force will be deployed as part of the security arrangements tomorrow. "Out of the total strength of 10,500 policemen in the city, we will be deploying around 7,000 of them, that is 70 per cent of the total strength. In addition, we have called in 2,000 additional policemen from other parts of the state for the bandobust tomorrow," Meena said. "To provide enhanced security, we will also deploy 12 companies of the state reserve police (SRP), bomb squad and quick Response teams. We have also sent a request to send a team of NSG commandos. They may also join us," he said.

According to Meena, the city police today performed a rehearsal along the entire route of the road show using the same number of vehicles that would be part of it tomorrow to see how much time it would take and what are the areas where improvement is needed.

Meanwhile, Gujarat's Minister of State for Home, Pradeepsinh Jadeja visited Mahatma Mandir to take stock of the security arrangements. On September 14, Abe and Modi are scheduled to lay the foundation stone for the bullet train project here before attending the India-Japan Annual Summit at Mahatma Mandir in the evening.

As many as 10,000 people would attend the ground-breaking ceremony for the bullet train project to be held at the Athletics Ground near the Sabarmati Railway Station in the city. "We will deploy one IG-level officer along with six Superintendents of Police (SP)-level officers to supervise the entire security arrangements. Others, who will be deployed across Gandhinagar include, six assistant SPs, 35 deputy SPs, 70 inspectors, 150 sub-inspectors and 1,800 other policemen," Jadeja said.

PTI