Gujarat is gearing up for Lord Jagganath’s Rath Yatra, which will be celebrated on July 1. According to sources, on that day, the state will see a total of 152 Rath Yatras and nearly 60 Shobha Yatras. As such, the state police and security authorities are already planning arrangements so that all festivities are carried out smoothly and there are no disruptions of any kind.
So far it is believed that the police have identified 25 sensitive areas including cities like Ahmedabad, Anand, Bhavnagar, Himmatnagar, Junagadh, Kheda, Mehsana, Modasa, and Viramgam. These districts will have police forces stationed on the roads, who will be on alert for any indication of disruptive activities.
This morning, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporations (AMC) Mayor Kirit Parmar reviewed the security arrangements along the Rath Yatra route, which starts from Jagannath temple in the Jamalpur and ends at Saraspur temple. Other members of the standing committee and officials of the East zone were also present here and carried out the inspection.
Crime Branch in the city also held a high-level meeting in order to discuss the security arrangements during Rath Yatra. State Home Minister Harsh Sanghvi and Sanjay Srivastava, Ahmedabad Police Commissioner, were also present at the meeting.
This year the scenario is extra sensitive what with the Assembly elections fast approaching and political parties sprawling around, campaigning in different districts. That said, police are also likely to take strong precautions in Ahmedabad as the festival of Eid falls just about ten days after the Jagannath yatra. The officials were on high alert, earlier this month while surveying the security arrangements as Al-Qaeda too had threatened to attack India over Nupur Sharma’s controversial comments against Prophet Muhammad.
