Extra troops in J-K for fair polls

‘‘To add to the present strength of 40 CRPF battalions, more companies have been sent. The aim behind this move is to prevent anybody from disturbing peace,’’ said J.K.Sinha, DG, CRPF, who was visiting Jammu to review the security scenario in the region.

‘‘Our objective will be to not let anything disturb peace in the region,’’ said Sinha. Last week, the election commissioners too held a meeting with the Army, police and administrative officers to ensure that security is provided to all candidates on equitable basis.

Though Election Commissioner N.Gopalaswamy maintained that the security situation at present was better than that for 2002 polls, still no one wants to take chances so far as security deployment is concerned. After BSF, it is CRPF that has a maximum deployment here. With 40 more companies, the present strength of BSF has shot up to 273 as against 272 of CRPF.

Besides these ITBP, SSB and CISF have also deployed their companies in the region. Around 1,099 booths have been identified as highly sensitive while 1,382 are sensitive zones.

In Jammu region, Udhampur tops the list with a maximum of 353 hyper-sensitive booths followed by 233 in Doda 178 in Poonch, 133 in Rajouri and 104 in Kathua.

In four phases 63.76 lakh voters will go to poll for five constituencies. As many as 7,217 polling booth have been formed and 9,500 electronic voting machines have already reached state.