As India prepares for parliamentary elections that are a week away, election body in Odisha have deployed additional security forces along three helicopters in state's Maoist-hit areas.
The Koraput district in Odisha is going to deploy three Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopters for security of the area during the first phase of polls on April 10.
The poling authorities are being more cautious this time as the area witnessed attacks by Maoists in the last elections in 2009.
Chief Electoral Officer of Odisha Mona Sharma said on Saturday that the helicopters are likely to reach a couple of days before the polling day.
"We have good penetration of our intelligence agencies and we have good deployment of police force, we have also got additional force as per our requirement from the minister, so they have been deployed. In addition, for connectivity point of view, we have mobilised additional satellite phones which have been given to the paramilitary forces and also we have borrowed the digital satellite phones terminals from the BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, telecom service provider). So these will be additional communication networks available. We have also then requisitioned three helicopters for the election purpose in the area," said Sharma.
This time special emphasis has been on preventing the recurrence of incidents of burning and snatching of electronic voting machines by Maoists from polling booths which had taken place in the last general elections.
Special arrangements will also be made for specially-abled at the polling centres.
